Star Wars: What if Qui-Gon Jinn lived?
by TheCasualObserver15
Summary: What if Qui-Gon Jinn survived his encounter on Naboo? What if he was the master that was to train the 'Chosen One' of prophecy? My own take on what would have happened to the star wars universe as a whole. With some of my own stories weaved in.
1. Chapter 1

Fanfic: Star wars

I have been inspired to write this by both the movies and other talented writers takes on this beloved story. I do not own Star Wars in any way, shape or form. I am simply a nerd who loves Sci-Fi and comics along with other things. I hope you enjoy my first crack at writing. So without any further ado, it time to go to a place long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away

That of course had laser guns.

Chapter 1: A beginning

The hanger fell silent as the door slid open, revelling the dark cloaked figure of the Zabrak that had been chasing both the queen of Naboo and the two Jedi since Tatooine. Although Qui-Gon kept a calm and collected expression, inside he was tense, knowing that the opponent they were facing now was both skilled and dangerous based on their brief encounter on Tatooine. He didn't even have to look in Obi-Wan's direction to know that he was feeling the same way, the force helped Qui-Gon to do that. Just as the force helped him to feel the Sith assassins hate and rage crash against him like waves upon a shore. The Zabrak raised his head and observed them with his yellow eyes, the unmistakable sign of the Sith, glowing like a roaring fire. And for a brief moment, Qui-Gon noticed, glanced to something behind them... or someone. _Anakin_ , Qui-Gon thought to himself, _if this Sith were to take Anakin then a great darkness shall fall across the galaxy. I will not let that happen!_

'We'll handle this.' Qui-Gon said calmly as he and Obi-Wan stepped in front of their group, forming a barrier between the Sith and Padme Amidala's group.

'We'll take the long way.' Padme said, her reluctance to leave the Jedi behind without helping them clearly evident in her voice, and started walking away with captain Panka and his security force. As they left, the two Jedi removed their cloak to allow more movement, then ignited their emerald and azure blades and positioned themselves to be ready to fight their enemy. The Zabrak assassin did the same; he removed his cloak to reveal his heavily tattooed face and draw his saber and ignited his blood red blades, first coming out of the top and another coming out of the bottom. Then, as the Sith assassin bared his teeth in a low growl, he striked against the two Jedi.

The battle that followed was one that Qui-Gon dreaded; he would be lying to himself if he said that there wasn't a small part of him that hoped that their opponent wouldn't be as skilled as he first thought. But the Zabrak assassin was well taught and easily kept up with the two Jedi, parrying the strikes, thrusts and slashes that were thrown his way. He used, Qui-Gon noticed, the VII form of lightsaber combat Juyo. While the form was supposed to be weak against multiple opponents, the Sith used its fierce yet graceful attacks against the two Jedi with such skill that he easily kept them at bay with help with his doubled bladed saber. As the fight continued, the Zabrak warrior started to move backwards towards the palaces generator complex, an area that was made up of silver and dark grey walls along with a multitude of walkways crisscrossing the complex, leading to just as many doors. Columns of light, that were going through some of the walkways, glowing with a bluish light as they lead all the way down to lowest level of the facility that was nowhere in sight. As the Jedi's followed their query through the access doors, the assassin used the force to pick up a piece of a destroyed battle droid and throw it at the doors control panel to make sure no one can enter or leave, then continued his duel with the Jedi master and his padawan. The battle continued to increase in intensity as the emerald and azure blades clashed with the blood red blades, causing a constant buzzing like a hundred angry hornets. Both Jedi know that if a careless mistake was made then they would suffer a fatal wound due to the Sith's barrage of viscous slashes and swipes. But that wasn't what the Sith had in mind, instead of dealing a deadly blow to Obi-Wan when his defence was momentarily down, he delivered a swift kick to Obi-Wan's chest that sent him over the edge of the walkway, landing with a smack on a similar walkway a few levels below and almost sending him over if he didn't grab the ledge and hanged there, slightly dazed from the fall. Unfortunately for the Sith assassin, he didn't have time to relish the small victory as Qui-Gon preformed a similar manoeuvre and sent him over the edge of the walkway as well, but landing on a walkway a level higher then where Obi-Wan was pulling himself up and on to the safety of the walkway. Qui-Gon, with a calm expression, jumped off the walkway he was on and followed the Zabrak assassin. As he was landing, Qui-Gon used his momentum from his fall to deliver a downwards slash to the Sith, but the assassin was ready to block the attack then push the Jedi master away, jumped up to his feet and continued his fierce onslaught of attacks.

As the Sith assassin and Jedi master moved to one of the complexes many doorways to a reactor shaft, as their fight grow in intensity, Obi-Wan had just managed to pull himself up and grabbed his lightsaber to re-join the battle with his master. He had no trouble locating them thanks to the sounds of their lightsaber's constantly crashing against each other. He realised that they were moving towards one of the complex's reactor shafts, where the dangerous waste of the generator are taken to be disposed of. Obi-Wan knew that he had to re-join the fight to help his master before they were separated by the layers of shields that were located at regular intervals along the corridor leading to the shaft. The shields were designed to prevent any of the generators waste from accidently leaving the shaft and harming any of the near-by equipment and personnel. If he was separated from his master for too long in this fight... _No._ Obi-Wan thought to himself, he eyed the walkway that his master was fighting on and, with the help of the force, jumped up to the walkway and as soon as his feet had touched the ground, he ran towards the fight with the force still assisting him by increasing his speed.

Qui-Gon knew that he was in trouble, the Sith assassin before him was well adapted at fighting and Qui-Gon was starting to get tired. His preferred lightsaber style, Ataru, was much like the VII form that his opponent was using, strong against individual opponents but was not well suited for drawn out fights because of how taxing it was to the body. So unless Obi-Wan could catch up or if he could take down the Sith that was trying to kill him with his raged filled attacks, he may not live to see the sun set today. Then all of a sudden, as a slight hissing sound resonated from the corridor they were in, a red sheen appeared between them, separating them from each other. It was then that Qui-Gon realised where he was, the corridor leading to the reactor shaft with the protective shields up. He then hears Obi-Wan finally catch up at the very beginning of the corridor, waiting for the shields to drop so that he can re-join the battle. The Sith assassin simply looked at the shield that had appeared between him and the Jedi master and, out of curiosity, touched the shield with one of his blood red lightsaber's and with and angry hiss, the saber was repelled. Annoyance flared across his face as he was denied from his prey and with nothing better to do, he started to pace back and forth in his small section of the corridor. Qui-Gon on the other hand simply turned off his emerald blade, kneeled down on the floor, and started to mediate to regain his strength and to pass the time until the shields were dropped. The minutes that it took for the shields to open again felt like hours for Obi-Wan and from the look of it, the Zabrak warrior felt it as well. His pacing had increased in speed to a fast walk and his face contorted in anger at being forced to wait until he could try and kill the Jedi that were before him. Qui-Gon on the other hand was the very pinnacle of Jedi patience, his breathing the only form of movement from his body. While the seconds ticked away until the shields dropped and the inevitable fight commenced again, Qui-Gon started to put his plan into action. What he was about to perform was a meditation technique called Alchaka, a difficult meditation that, if performed correctly, would clear his mind and attune his body more to the force which should give him a new edge to his opponent and allow him to last long enough for Obi-Wan to re-join the fight.

Obi-Wan readied his lightsaber and prepared himself to use force speed to hopefully reach his master in time. If he had timed the shields activation and deactivation correctly then he would barely enough time to get into the room in time to help, but he had to make. He had to get in the room and help his master to defeat the Sith assassin. And as the hiss from the shields signalled the shields were opening, Qui-Gon opened his eyes and attach the readied Sith with new strength. As the last shield deactivated, Obi-Wan ran with the full might of his force abilities to assist his speed and prayed that he would make it in time. As the sound of fighting becoming louder and louder, Obi-Wan counted inside of his head. _4...3...2...1!_ As the familiar hiss start to fill the corridor and the shield just started to turn on, Obi-Wan had just passed the final shield leading to the reactor shaft room, a small area with a large hole with a metal covering leading down towards darkness, and the shield had closed, singeing the back of his robes slightly. He quickly patted his back to try to stop it from getting worse and once he was done, he leaped into battle to help his master.

The Sith snarled in anger, his plan had not only backfired but it had also trapped him as well. His plan was a simple one, engage the Jedi scum then separate them to kill them one at a time. First the master would have fallen then his pathetic padawan. But the master had skilfully evaded and blocked each and every single one of his attacks with no trace of fatigue with his ever increasing strikes that was forcing him to be more defensive and more observant of his attacks. It really started to go downhill when the padawan re-joined the fight, another part of his plan that had not worked, with the two Jedi reunited their years of experience fighting by each other sides, attacking and defending for each other, had successfully baked him more into a corner. He couldn't escape, the shields for the room were closed and will not open in time, he couldn't jump away and gain more space, the room were far too small for that. It started to dawn on him that he may not survive this encounter. This infuriated him further and caused him to lash out in anger. This also failed for him. What happened next was a blur for the assassin, first the padawan swiped upwards with his azure blade and sliced through his double bladed lightsaber causing it to explode in a shower of sparks that burned his hands even though he was wearing black gloves, and then the master slashed sideways with his emerald blade and the Zabrak warrior gave a quick grunt in pain. He stood there for a few moments, with a confused look on his face, then fell backwards into the shaft, his legs falling away from his body and followed him down the shaft.

As soon as the darkness had finally engulfed the Sith's body, Qui-Gon fell to his knees in exhaustion. It had worked. The Alchaka technique had worked. It had allowed him to become more in tuned with the force and allowed him to merely react to the warnings and promptings of the force without any form of thought. The only drawback was that after it was used correctly, it brought the user to the brink of exhaustion which was why it was rarely used in combat.

'Master, are you ok?' Obi-Wan asked, worry clearly evident in his voice.

'Yes Obi-Wan, I'm fine.' Qui-Gon replied to reassure his apprentice. 'Let's be thankful to the force that we survived this encounter. But if this has taught us anything, it has taught us that the Sith have returned and that we will have to be more careful from now on.' That statement hanged in the air for a moment. And during that moment, both men thought of what they have been taught at the temple, about how the last war with the Sith had been so filled with darkness and fear that it sent a slight chill running down their spines with the mere thought that those times could return again.

'Come my apprentice. Now we must return to the others and make sure they are alright.'

Qui-Gon said to pull Obi-Wan out of his thoughts. 'Yes master.' Obi-Wan replied. And with that, they ran out of the reactor shaft and towards the hanger to find the others. And to leave behind their dark thoughts of the Sith's return. But like a mist, it hanged in the back of their minds.

As they re-entered the palaces hanger, they realised that everything was fine. The pilots and their crafts had returned from the planet wide blockade mostly intact, with the exception of a few scorch marks along the hulls of their ships, and that pieces of destroyed battle droids littered the floor of the hanger. While the two Jedi's were looking for the queen of Naboo and Anakin, Qui-Gon overheard a conversation from some of the pilots as they were walking past.

'I still can't believe that he managed to pilot like that and take down the Federations control ship by himself. I mean, how young is that kid?'

This caused a small smile to play on his lips. _It seems that Anakin had kept himself rather busy._ Qui-Gon thought to himself. After a few moments of searching, they finally found an excited Anakin talking happily to the young queen who was with her captain of security Panka, who both had a mixture of disbelief and shock on their features from what the young boy before them was talking about. As the two Jedi's walked towards the small group, Anakin turned his head towards them and upon seeing them, his eyes lit up and a huge grin start to appear across his face.

'Qui-Gon!' He all but shouted as he ran towards the older Jedi master. "You won't believe what's happened. First, I went and hid in one the ships like you said with R2 then I used the ship's weapons to protect Padme from droids and then the ships autopilot got engaged and we went into space and then there were tons of ships all over the place and started firing at me and then..." Anakin would of been more than glad to continue with his story, but he was stopped when Qui-Gon raised his hand towards him.

'Now Anakin,' Qui-Gon said in a stern voice, matching perfectly with the stern look on his face. 'The whole point of you hiding in the first place was so that you could stay out of trouble instead of going off finding it. You could have gotten yourself killed. When it comes to this sort of situation you need to listen to me.' Anakin looked down with a shameful expression, now his excitement was replaced with worry about how he might have now lost the chance to become a Jedi and have Qui-Gon as his master. But as he looked back up to his master face, he sure him smile proudly at him. 'But, being able to perfectly pilot a completely unfamiliar ship as well as taking out the Federation control ship which was Lucrenhulk class battle ship almost singlehandedly is not only impressive,' by this point kneeling down so that he was eye level with Anakin and place his hand on his shoulder. 'but astonishing.' With that, Anakin's smile had returned to his lips with his worry being replaced with happiness.

'Now,' Qui-Gon said as he was slowly raised again to his feet, 'we need to report back to the Jedi council and tell them what has happened here.' 'Right' Anakin replied as he started to walk with both Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan to the nearest communication console. They had only just managed to walk a few steps before Anakin spoke again. 'Sooooo, am I still in trouble?' he asked curiously to his possible Jedi master.

Qui-Gon chuckled lightly, 'No, you're still in a lot of trouble.'

The miniature hologram of Yoda, long to be considered the grand master of the Jedi order, stroked his chin with a worried expression on his face 'Troubling news this is.' He said to Qui-Gon, who was alone in the communications room. He nodded his head in response.

'Yes, it is. But that is not the only thing that has troubled me about this encounter with this Sith.'

'Hmmmmmm, two there always are. A master and an apprentice.'

'Exactly. We cannot be sure if he was the master of the Sith or just the apprentice.' The old master nodded. 'Find his body we must. Once found, sleep easier I will. And what of Naboo?'

'Rebuilding as we speak from the blockade. There is even to be a peace ceremony between the Gungans and the people of Naboo thanks to the Gungans contribution in the battlefield.'

Yoda sighed slightly, 'Good.' He was glad that the two races were able to find peace between each other, even if it was over such a dark matter as an invasion. He looked at Qui-Gon for moment, 'Wish to ask something else you do?'

'Yes, its concerning Anakin's training as a Jedi. Has the council thought more about the matter?' Yoda knew that this was coming, when it came to Qui-Gon Jinn, he was known to be extremely stubborn and could not be moved when he truly believed in something or in this case, someone.

'Yes, long and hard the council has thought of this. Training, the boy will receive. You to train him, the council wants.'

Qui-Gon bowed to the small green master, 'Thank you master.' He said with great sincerity.

'Obi-Wan to do the trails, I assume?' Yoda asked.

'Yes master, he is ready. His efforts in the fight against the Sith shows that he is more than ready to do so.'

'Done it shall be.' Yoda replied. He gave Qui-Gon a concern look before continuing to speak. 'A sliver of hope I sense for the boy with you. Almost no existent with anyone else.'

Qui-Gon gave the old master a shocked look, 'Are you sure? Your premonitions are normally much more accurate than that.'

'Clouded by the dark side, the future is. Dark times I fear are coming. Still wish to train the boy you do?' Yoda asked, wondering if he had accidently put the Jedi master off from training Anakin.

Qui-Gon gave a look of steely determination to the grand master. 'Yes, I still wish to. What you have said has merely informed me of what I already know. Anakin is the chosen one and it shall be an honour to train him.' Yoda stood there looking at the Jedi master for a moment looking for a weakness in his conviction for the boy, but found none.

After that, he slowly nodded his head, 'Done it is then. Good luck.' And with that, the transmission ended and the hologram disappeared. Qui-Gon briefly wondered what the old master had meant when he said 'Good luck.' Did he mean good luck with training Anakin? Or did he mean good luck with the dark times that were to come? Qui-Gon shook his head lightly. _I shall do what I have always done._ He thought to himself as he left the room. _Listen to the force and do my best._


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The Gathering, part 1

Ok, before we start I want to make a few things clear.

1\. 1. Yes. I am doing a two part thing. So what? It's my fanfic and I will do what I want.

b. I did this two part thing because I dint want to keep you guys hanging without an update.

c. wait no... 3. Thank you to all those who left reviews from last time. I am glad you guys are enjoying this

So with that out of the way, lets go to a place a long time ago, to a place far, far away...

That has space ships that can go faster than light. Why don't we have that? Its because their aliens isn't it? Damn their privileges.

It had been roughly a year since the invasion of Naboo, almost a year since Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan had defeated the assassin and sent him down the reactor shaft, a feat that had people calling them 'Sith killers', almost a year since Obi-Wan had passed the trails and been raised to the rank of a Jedi knight, almost a year since Anakin had been accepted to be trained by both the Jedi academy and master Qui-Gon Jinn. And Anakin loved every second of it. Sure, to begin with he had complained about being in the new younglings lessons when he already had a master with Qui-Gon.

When he brought this up with his master, the Jedi master simply chuckled slightly and said, 'That may be true Anakin, but it is still important to go over the basics even if you have a talent with the force. Sometimes a Jedi's most powerful technique is the simplest one.'

'Besides,' he added. 'It's a good idea to get to know your future fellow Jedi because one day, you may need their help and getting to know them that little bit better can help.'

So with that said, Anakin went to his first youngling lesson. To begin with, Anakin felt a little bit embarrassed to be in the same class as children who were about half his age, but remembering what his master told him, he took his place among them. His first lesson was taught by master Yoda, who had always greeted new younglings with a lesson, and the lesson that he was to teach was about meditation. To start, the old green master explained what meditation was used for in the Jedi order, about how it was used to clear the mind and connect with the force explaining that the deeper the meditation, the deeper you are connected to the force. He then went over some of the different meditation techniques and their different advantages, such as the Art of movement technique, to the difficult Alchaka technique. He even went on about how visions that are received from the force can predict the future.

'Difficult to understand they can be. Heed them you must.' He had said to them. This had interested Anakin a little bit, about how something as simple as meditation can still be so useful to a Jedi. Although he was more interested in the more physical applications of it though.

'Now meditate you will.' Yoda had said to gain the younglings attention and to continue the lesson. At this point everyone had sat down, closed their eyes and begun to meditate like Yoda had instructed. Anakin, towering over the smaller children around him, followed suit and started to meditate. What happened next had not only excited Anakin when he was told what had happened, but it also surprised the grand master when it happened. It hadn't been more than a few moments before every single object that wasn't nailed down started to float around the room, as if they were caught within a gravitational orbit of a planet. Even Yoda's lightsaber was pulled away from his belt and started to float around the room. Yoda took a moment to observe the centre of the source that was causing this to happen and saw Anakin, calmly sitting there breathing softly, completely oblivious to what was happening around him.

 _Mmm, interesting he is. Powerful he can be._ Yoda thought to himself.

And it continued just like that, with each lesson that he received from the youngling instructors and his own master Qui-Gon, he excelled. So much so that he ended up in the classes of younglings of his age after his first 6 months of training.

Now at the present day, Anakin was practising lightsaber combat with his master in one of the temples many training rooms. For the time being, Qui-Gon was merely spectating, watching how his apprentice was handling himself against one of the sparing droids with a practice lightsaber. So far, he was doing rather well, avoiding and defending when he needed to and striking whenever possible. He watched as Anakin had just blocked a downward slash from the droid then pushed the blade it was holding to the side where the now exposed droid received a strike to the chest that would have been lethal to any normal being, but had simply deactivated the droid, causing it to fall with a clank against the floor. Anakin then turned to look at with master with a cocky smile that had quite recently become all too familiar with the young padawan.

Qui-Gon simply sighed in return. 'Anakin, how many times have I told you? You are sacrificing too much of your defence and balance to have more of an aggressive attack. You need to learn to be patient.'

Anakin rolled his eyes slightly. 'But master, the whole point of a fight is to win in the first place and if I can do so as quickly as possible then wouldn't that be better?'

Qui-Gon raised his eyebrows questionably. 'Is that what you believe?'

'Ummm, ... yes?' Anakin replied uncertainly, not too sure where his master was heading.

'Ok then.' he said as he walked towards Anakin, while extending his hand which caused one of the training lightsaber's from a nearby rake to float into his hand. When it landed in his hand, he ignited it and took a ready stance with it.

'Then lets test that shall we?' he said to Anakin, who had finally understood what his master meant. With a smile, he re-ignited his own training lightsaber and attacked his master with it. Out of all the lessons that he had, lightsaber training was by far his favourite, especially when he fought with his master. Compared with the other instructors that Anakin had, his master brought a level of skill that was only ever gained through experience, which made the fight so much more enjoyable for him. In the fight, once Anakin had started attacking, he never let up even for a moment. Trying to brutally smash his way through his master's defences with a multitude of swipes and slashes, said master was effortlessly blocking each and every attack, marvelling at how his student had grown in his abilities in such a short amount of time.

 _But_ , he thought to himself, _not enough to beat me yet though._ And when their saber's clashed again, what must have been the second dozen time at this point, he masterfully sidestepped and allowed the momentum from Anakin's strike to cause his young apprentice to momentarily lose balance, then Qui-Gon used the force to push him to the floor where the breath inside him left explosively. Another part about training with his master, which was both to love and hate, was that he never held back. This was good because it made Anakin truly prepare himself against an enemy that would want to kill him, like the Sith that his master and his padawan of the time, Obi-wan, had to fight. And the bad part was that it almost always ended with Anakin being in a small amount of pain on the floor of the temple room.

'You see Anakin,' Qui-Gon started to say, 'with what you propose to do, you imply that to win you have to make an opening happen. While sometimes this is needed, you cannot do it all the time. Doing so would just tire yourself much more quickly and leave yourself open to attacks which your opponent can easily take advantage of like I have with you.' By this point, he had walked over to the Anakin and held out his hand to help him back to his feet, a hand that Anakin took.

Once Anakin was back to his feet, rubbing his side slightly, Qui-Gon continued with his lecture. 'Then the only thing that they would have to do Anakin, and what you should start learning to do, is to simply have patience and wait for an opening to occur.'

'But master,' Anakin replied, 'if you do that then everything would just take too long to do.'

'That may be true, but' his master countered, 'the fastest action taken without first having the patience to take in what is truly happening can make the matter worse than making it better. Do you understand Anakin?'

'Yes master.' He replied in a voice that had Qui-Gon questioning whether or not he actually had. 'But master,' he continued, 'couldn't you have just told me that instead of throwing me onto the floor?'

'Mmmm.' He thought while lightly stroking his small beard. 'Possibly, but if I did then you would never learn anything.' He replied with a small smile.

'Plus its really funny when he kicks your butt.' A new voice echoed slightly off the walls of the training room as the person who that voice belonged to entered the room.

Anakin, in response, laughed sarcastically. 'You know you're welcome to give this a try Frey.' He said to the person that he now recognised as his friend Frey Callipso. Frey was the first person that Anakin had met after being moved into the younglings group of his age. In his first lesson with the new group, Anakin was paired with Frey for a lightsaber sparing session where during it they started talking and they had gotten along like a house on fire. He had short bark brown hair and leave green eyes which were not bothering to hide the amusement that he felt.

'Well I would,' he began to say, 'but it's much more fun to watch you getting your butt kicked.' Before Anakin could respond, Qui-Gon intervened before they could start a long winded conversation to see who can make fun of whom the most in their friendly way.

'Hello Frey, so what brings you here?' Qui-Gon asked kindly.

'Hello master Jinn,' he said with a slight bow. 'I came to see if it was ok to spar with Anakin for a little bit. But if it's not then I can come...'

'Nonsense.' Qui-Gon interrupted with a dismissive wave of his hand. 'By all means, come and practise. It's good for younglings to train with each other to get accustomed to different fighting styles that they have.'

'Thank you master Jinn, I could use the practice.' Frey replied with a nod of his head, then proceeded to take a training lightsaber from the rake and approached Anakin readying himself. Qui-Gon then returned his training lightsaber and went back to observing the proceeding practise fight. He watched the two spar for a little bit before he was interrupted by his old padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi.

'Morning master.' He said politely

'Morning to you too Obi-Wan. How was your last mission? I hope it didn't leave you with too much trouble to deal with.' Qui-Gon replied with.

'It was nothing much, just a bit of a skirmish in the outer rim. Although things have been quiet since the blockade back on Naboo.'

Qui-Gon sighed slightly at this. 'Yes. Yes they have.'

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow at his old masters reaction. 'I am guessing from your reaction that the search hasn't made any form of headway recently then?

'The search hasn't made any headway since Naboo.' The search that they were talking about was the search for the Sith assassin that they faced back on Naboo. Once the planet had been freed from the blockade, the Jedi had spend weeks searching through the reactor shafts and where they lead to but had not found one trace of him besides from his severed legs. His disappearance had leaded them to two conclusions. One, the Sith had help disappearing and two, that the assassin was somewhere out there. Once the council had been informed with this development, they had put Qui-Gon in charge of finding where the Sith had gone and to bring him back alive if possible for questioning. But, unfortunately, besides knowing his appearance that the fact that he was a Sith, they knew nothing else about him and this had lead to more than one complication in finding him.

'If it wasn't for the fact that we were missing the other half of his body then I would have thought he was dead. But we are, and he's not.'

Obi-Wan nodded his head in agreement. 'And the fact that he had disappeared so effectively means that he had help which also means that by now he would of received treatment for his injuries.'

'Yes and if that is the case, then he is hiding until he wants to show himself. And if he is planning something, then we need to find him and soon before he can implement it.'

'Yeah that would be ideal.' Obi-Wan said, wondering now what the Sith would do when, not if, but when he would reveal himself. The first thing that popped into his mind was revenge, revenge on the people who had defeated him in the past, such was the way of the Sith. He immediately looked towards his old master, who was observing Anakin sparring with his friend, with a concerned look. If the Sith wants revenge then he will go after him and his old master, although Obi-Wan may never of said it out loud but he was worried about the Sith facing his old master again, the fight that had happened on Naboo had pushed both of them to their limits and it still was a fight that kept Obi-Wan wondering what would of happened if he didn't reach his master in time. But now, with the possibility of the Sith still alive, that put Obi-Wan on edge, thinking that the assassin could try and become more powerful and killing his old master.

 _No._ He thought to himself with a shake of his head. He knew that he should have faith in him and the force that everything should end up ok, and he shouldn't have anything to worry about it in the first place. Ever since Naboo, Qui-Gon has been working tirelessly on his abilities and that of his new student Anakin, always pushing to improve, to make himself and Anakin better. Even Obi-Wan had changed because of it, changing his preferred style of lightsaber combat from Ataru to the highly defensive form III, Soresu. Made to block any and all attacks so that he could outlast his opponent and strike when they were tired or making decisions through frustration leaving them vulnerable to a counter attack. But still, the image of the Sith killing his old master in cold blood still clouded the back of his mind. Obi-Wan tried to think of something to say so that he could get his mind off the dark matter that had started to weight down on it, then he remembered a rather interesting conversation about what had happened that day in the council room.

'So,' Obi-Wan began to say to Qui-Gon, 'I heard that you had another interesting argument with the council again.'

Qui-Gon laughed slightly, 'You can say that again.'

Obi-Wan smiled slightly at his old master. 'I'm guessing that you haven't given up on trying to change the temples rule about Jedi having emotional connections then?'

Qui-Gon nodded his head with a small smile. 'You have known me long enough to know the answer to that.' Within the Jedi order, Qui-Gon had always been seen as a maverick, never always following the Jedi orders completely if the force showed him a better way. This had of course placed him on rough grounds with other Jedi and the council, more so with Mace Windu than with anyone else, but they still request his help with matters because they know that when it comes down to it Qui-Gon always did what was best and always brought situations to the best of endings. 'But my point still stands.' Qui-Gon continued, 'The only reason that that particular rule exist in the first place was because the council of the time thought it was prudent because of the fall of a Jedi knight that had lost his loved one. But if you check the records, there has been a steady increase in fallen Jedi because of that rule, if they had connections with others then that would have helped and prevented those Jedi from turning dark in the first place.'

'Besides,' he added, 'if I do manage it, you and Lania would be able to do more than just flirt with each other.' Obi-Wan's checks started to gain a red tinge in reaction to that. Lania Morrow was another Jedi knight within the order and she was a close friend to Obi-Wan, whenever they meet they always find subtle ways to flirt with one another. And Qui-Gon always found his old padawan's reaction when they talked about her rather amusing so he would always manage to slip in a small taunt when he can.

Obi-Wan quickly cleared his throat, 'I don't know what you mean.'

Qui-Gon smiled warmly, 'Of course you don't.'

'Anyway,' Obi-Wan said in an effort to get rid of the slight heat that had started to take hold of his checks, 'I should get going now, another mission awaits.'

'So soon?' Qui-Gon asked.

'You know what they say, no rest for the wicked.'

'You should start considering taking on a padawan soon.' Qui-Gon said to Obi-Wan, who had started to walk away. 'You are more than ready to do so and it will be good for your training as well as theirs.'

Obi-Wan smiled slightly at this. 'Well I make no promises, but I do have my eye on someone.'  
Qui-Gon started to smile warmly as his watched his former padawan walk away. He was glad that Obi-Wan was doing so well, he thought that this was what it felt like for a parent to watch their child become a kind and helpful person, a mixture of pride and joy for the man he had become. He then turned his head towards Anakin, who was helping Frey up from the floor from their latest sparring match.

 _But for now_ , he thought to himself, _it's time to focus on the padawan I have presently._

The day continued with Qui-Gon and Anakin, Frey leaving after the seventh time that Anakin had beaten him in their sparring match, training in the forms of lightsaber combat, from the simple form I, Shii-Cho, to vicious form XII, Juyo. And as the day drew to a close, the master and his apprentice were fighting against each other in a free style sparring match. Qui-Gon using the Ataru style and Anakin using form V, Djem So, using it powerful attacks to try and break through his masters defences. While Anakin was throwing powerful swipes and slashes towards his master, said master was evading and blocking each attack that his apprentice tried. And as Anakin tried a thrust towards his masters chest, Qui-Gon spun around and clashed his blade with Anakin's which caused the young padawan to lose his hold of the training lightsaber where it flew across the room and landed with a clatter on the floor. Qui-Gon nodded his head towards Anakin as he turned off his training lightsaber.

'Good, you're getting better. You still need to be more patient with your strikes, but right now I believe we need some food and a good night's rest.'

'What?' Anakin said in reply, with a hint of disappointment in his voice. 'But I want to keep on training, I can still keep going. I mean, isn't a Jedi knight supposed to be able to persevere against any kind of pain?'

Qui-Gon smiled at Anakin's reaction. No matter what happened, no matter how many times he was thrown about by Qui-Gon, Anakin kept on wanting to train more and more until he could become a strong Jedi that Qui-Gon knew he would become. And as Anakin started to open his mouth to try and persuade his master into more training, a rumbling sound started to groan from the young padawan's stomach, echoing slightly in the temple training room. Qui-Gon gave Anakin a knowing look.

'Ok, maybe I could go for some food.' And with that they headed to their shared quarters that each Jedi and their padawan receive from the council.

During their meal in their shared quarters, a reasonable sized apartment that had a joined kitchen/living room with three doors, one leading to Anakin's room, one leading to Qui-Gon's room and the last leading to a washroom, Qui-Gon sensed that Anakin was looking at him with a mixture of curiosity and nervousness through the force. It was clear to Qui-Gon that Anakin wanted to ask him something but was debating on whether or not to actually ask him. And as the last of the meal was eaten and the plates were put away, Qui-Gon decided that he would ask his young padawan what was bothering him.

'Now Anakin, what is it that you wanted to ask me?'

For a moment, Anakin had a surprised look etched across his face, 'How did you know that master?'

Qui-Gon smiled at him, 'Anakin, I was given the rank of a Jedi master for a reason. But that's beside the point, what is it that you wanted to ask of me?' He asked again.

Anakin started to fidget slightly, 'Well I was wondering... when will I get my own lightsaber?'

'When you have acquired your kyber crystal and use it to construct one.' Qui-Gon replied simply.

Anakin frowned at his master's response, 'Ok, so when will that be then.'

'Soon.' He replied with just the same amount of simplicity as before.

Anakin started to frown even more, annoyances showing clearly across his face. 'That isn't very specific master.'

Qui-Gon nodded his head slightly, 'That may be true, but so is what I have said Anakin. It is going to happen; you just need to be patient.'

'Yes master.' Anakin replied, still slightly annoyed with the lack of an actual answer from his master. Then a thought entered his mind and he wondered if his master would actually let him.

 _Well_ , he thought, _only one way to find out._

'Well then, would it be ok if I tried out your lightsaber instead?'

Qui-Gon raised an eyebrow, 'You want to try out my lightsaber?'

'Yes master.' Anakin replied. 'I know that the training lightsaber's are made to handle the same as the real thing, but to hold one that actually works and has a real kyber crystal in it, I just want to feel the difference.'

Qui-Gon looked at his apprentices pleading look and started to smile. 'I don't see why we can't do that.' He said as he started to unhook his lightsaber from his belt. 'But you will have to be careful; I don't want to tell the council how a smouldering hole appeared in our quarters.'

Anakin, who had been grinning with excitement at the fact that his master had agreed to let him try out his lightsaber, quickly nodded his head. 'Yes master. Thank you master.'

'Now then,' Qui-Gon started to say as he moved towards the middle of the room where there was more space, 'Come over here.'

Anakin followed his master to the middle of the room with a small spring to his step, barely able to contain his excitement.

'But remember, this will cut so be careful understand.' Qui-Gon said in a stern voice.

'Yes master.' Anakin replied happily.

Qui-Gon then nodded and gave his lightsaber to Anakin's waiting hands. As soon as Anakin held it, his face became a look of concentration. He knew that he had handled the training lightsaber's long enough so that he doesn't accidently hurt himself with it, but with a real lightsaber that can actually cut through pretty much anything, Anakin held it with extra caution to avoid losing any limbs. He turned around so that Qui-Gon was behind him and ignited his master's lightsaber. The emerald blade bathed the space around him in a green glow with a strong hum accompanying it, the blade itself seems too large for Anakin.

'There is a dial on the side that can change the length so it can be made easier for you.' Qui-Gon said helpfully, still standing behind his padawan, watching.

Anakin followed the advice and turned the dial which caused the blade to hiss slightly as it shrank to a more manageable length for him. He gave the blade a few small swings to try and get used to it, each swing getting a little bit bigger as he got more confident.

'So has does it fell Anakin, compared to the training lightsaber's?' Qui-Gon asked, wondering what Anakin thought of the blade.

Anakin frowned slightly. 'It feels... like it's alive.'

Qui-Gon nodded. 'That is the kyber crystal inside of it. As you know, kyber crystals are connected to the force so it is common to say that it feels like it's alive. They also resonant on the same force presence as other force users so when you go to find your kyber crystal, you will be able to feel it more strongly than others.'

Anakin though about what his master had said, about how he would feel his own crystal much more strongly than what he could feel from the crystal that was inside of the blade, that fact shocked him slightly. It shocked him because when he felt the crystal inside of the blade, he felt that it had blood pumping around inside of it, as if it was an extension of a large and powerful creature and if he was able to sense his own crystal but with more strength. He thought that it would feel like it was a beating heart, pushing its power towards him to help him find it.

'Now I think it's time for you to go to bed now.' Qui-Gon said after looking at the nearby clock and realising how late it had gotten. 'Now could I have my lightsaber back Anakin?' He asked kindly.

Anakin snapped his head towards his master, surprised at how deep he was in his thoughts. 'Yes master.' He said as he deactivated the blade, banishing the green glow from the room, and handed the blade back to his master.

'Thank you master.' Anakin said to Qui-Gon after he handed it back to him.

Qui-Gon gave him a dismissive wave of his hand. 'There is no need Anakin, it is my job to help you grow and become the best Jedi and person that you can be in whatever why I can.' He said with a warm smile. 'Now off to bed with you. You will need your sleep.'

Anakin at this point had started yawn and rub his hand over his eye. 'Ok, goodnight master.' He said as he walked towards his room.

'Goodnight Anakin. Sleep well.' Qui-Gon said to his young padawan in a warm tone.

Anakin was awoken from his peaceful slumber by the loud alarm from his clock that always ended up leaving a dull ringing in his ears, like a faint echo in a cave. He reached out with a lazy hand and turned off the alarm and laid in his bed for a moment, taking in the room around him, bathed in the light of the morning sun pouring through his window. The window also providing a view of the city of Coruscant, already reflecting the light of the sun of the metal and glass of their structures, the air already beginning to fill with speeder's and other such vehicles as they zoomed past his window. While Anakin would of loved nothing more than to retreat back into the warmth of his bed and drift back into the pleasantness of sleep, he know that he would have to get up before his master came in and forced him to get up and lecture him about being lazy and sleeping in bed all day. Back when he was a slave on Tatooine, if he was seen like this by his owner then he would have been punished for his laziness, in bed or at work. And at the end of each gruelling day at Watto's junk shop, after going home to his and his mother's small living space and going to bed, he would hope that one day that he would wake up one day and be away from it all. To be free as well as his mother, to do what he wished to do. This hope, he realises, was only half granted. He was free but his mother was still stuck on Tatooine, trapped as a slave. This meant that he still had to keep his promise to come back and free her, which meant that he had to become a Jedi, which meant that he had to train to become strong, which meant that he had to get up and greet his master. With a small groan he pulled himself from his bed and got changed into his Jedi training robes. Once he was ready he opened his door and was greeted with the smell of a prepared breakfast and the sight of his master sitting down at the table, patiently waiting with a cup of tea in his hand.

He looked up when he heard Anakin's door opened. 'Ah, good morning Anakin. I'm glad that you could join me this morning.'

'Good morning master.' Anakin replied in a slightly groggy tone as he walked towards table, sat down and began to devour the food in front of him.

'If there is one thing about you that won't change, it will be your sense of apatite.' Qui-Gon said with a slight shake of his head.

Anakin looked up when his master said this and swallowed the food that was in his mouth. 'Well back on Tatooine, me and my mom wouldn't have been able to get a lot of food being slaves and all so most of the time I would go to bed mostly starving. So having this much food everyday is pretty incredible for me.' He said as he was about to resume his attack on his breakfast, but stopped as the thoughts of his mother started to enter his mind and a look of longing had consumed his features. 'I wish she was here to enjoy it though.'

Qui-Gon looked at his padawan with concern. He knew that with the temples rules about forming any type of attachment with anyone, including family, was hard for Anakin to accept. And seeing him long to meet his mother again made Qui-Gon's heart ache slightly for the mother that he has never meet.

Qui-Gon gave Anakin a comforting look. 'Anakin, I can't imagine what it must be like to miss a mother you have known for most of your life. As you know Jedi's are taken as babies when they are tested positive as force sensitive and then trained. This is the way it has been for centuries in an effort to avoid Jedi from falling to the dark side. But with you, you have fully formed memories of her so it is harder for you. But Anakin, if you ever want to talk about her or anything that troubles you then I shall always make time for you and listen.'

Anakin looked at his master for a few moments before a small smile started to appear on his face. 'Thank you master. I know that I shouldn't think about her while I am training to become a Jedi but I just can't help it sometimes.'

Qui-Gon nodded. 'I know, but if my brief encounter with your mother has taught me anything, then it is that she would be proud of who you are trying to become.'

Anakin small smile started to grow larger at what his master had said. 'Thank you master. I know that she would have been proud too. I guess I just needed to hear that.'

Qui-Gon smiled, happy that Anakin was feeling better. 'I will always be happy to help you Anakin, whatever it may be.'

After Anakin had finished eating his breakfast, Qui-Gon spoke again. 'Now it's time for you to start packing some warm clothes Anakin.'

Anakin gave his master a confused look. 'Why do I need to do that master?'

'Why,' Qui-Gon answered his apprentice, 'it's time you and some other younglings to get their own kyber crystals. It's time for the Gathering.'

Anakin, after packing a bag with warm clothes and slinging it on his back quite quickly, was walking with his master along the hallways of the temple leading outside where a ship was supposed to be waiting for them. This ship, which was called the Crucible he master had informed him, was to take them to the arctic planet Ilum where the ritual was to take place. While Anakin was feeling excited to finally get his own kyber crystal to make his lightsaber on this trip, he also felt annoyed with how he was suddenly told that the Gathering was taking place today on that day instead of knowing in advance. Deciding to ask why, he turned his head towards his master and spoke.

'Master, why didn't you tell me that this was happening today?'

'I did Anakin, this morning if you recall.' Qui-Gon said, responding to his young apprentice's question.

Anakin's annoyance started to leak into his features as he frowned. 'That is not what I meant master. I meant why didn't you tell me that the Gathering was happening today a couple of days ago?'

Anakin's master all but simply smiled. 'Patience Anakin. You will get your answers soon enough.'

This response irritated Anakin further but he followed his master to the waiting ship. He knows that his master always had a reason for what he did no matter what it was. Like when he stood like a stone against the counsel until they agreed to train him because his master believed in him, or how heavily and constantly he was training Anakin because he wanted him to able to protect himself and others and how he was always there for Anakin when he was troubled because his master truly cared about him. And just like now, his master had his reasons for not telling him about the Gathering today and if he said he was going tell him what those reasons were soon, then Anakin would wait, even if it did annoy him.

After a few moments, they were finally outside and there on the landing pad was the ship that was to take them to Ilum, the Crucible. It was a large ship, about 90 meters or more in length, but it was obvious to any casual observer that the ship was very old and well used, there are traces of rust and dirt along its hull and in its seams. Anakin wondered briefly how a ship so clearly old would still be able hover let alone fly. Finding the needed parts for the ship must be almost impossible. But Anakin couldn't judge too much considering that he used to work in a junk shop and the pod racer that he had made was made up with whatever parts that he could get his hands on.

Waiting just outside the ship was a small group of 5 other younglings from his class, including his friend Frey, all who had similar bags that he had with what he assumed had warm clothes in them much like his own. Anakin joined the group and went straight to Frey to see if he knew what was happening while Qui-Gon stood in front of the group and waited.

'Hey Frey, did you know that this was happening today?' Anakin asked his friend.

Frey turned his head towards Anakin. 'Hey,' He replied. 'Nope. Not a single clue, I was woken up this morning by one of the instructors and told to get ready for this.' He lifted his hand holding his bag and gestured to the ship in front of them. 'Did you?'

Before Anakin could answer he was interrupted by someone just behind him. 'He was probably told by his master just like with everything else. You always do manage to find a way to cheat don't you.'

Anakin's grip on his bag started to get tighter as he closed his eyes and breathed slowly. He turned around and saw Liza Rendix, the most obnoxious person the he had the misfortune to meet. She had long copper coloured hair which was always tied in a neat ponytail and dark eyes which rarely showed Anakin anything apart from dislike towards him.

'You know it would be nice if for once you didn't think that I somehow cheat in everything and believe that I have done what I have done.' Anakin said with a hint of annoyance. She had always said that Anakin was lying whenever he told people about what he did before he joined the academy, his battle back on Naboo and his pod race on Tatooine was all but considered a fairy tale to Liza. Even when they were paired together to spar in their classes, she would say that Anakin had cheated when he was able to keep up with the so called best student in the class.

She gave a short laugh in return. 'What? Believe that you took down a battle ship by yourself? No, you simply took the opportunity to cling onto the popularity of the pilots who actually did that.'

Before Anakin could reply saying how he didn't lie or cheat at anything, Frey stood between them with both hands held out in front of them. 'Could you guys not do this now? I mean we are about to go to Ilum and actually get our own kyber crystals, so for once could you guys play nice.' He said with no room for doubt.

Anakin stopped and look at his friend, then back at Liza who was looking back at him with her arms crossed and a smug look on her face. 'Looks like you need help with arguments too.' She said in way that irritated Anakin more.

Anakin took a small breath before replying. 'Fine I will try to play nice even though she started it.'

From the look of it, Anakin guessed that she was going to retort with something else, but was stopped as an aged voice rang out in front of the group. 'Your attention, I want.'

Anakin, Frey and Liza all turned around and saw the grand master of the Jedi order himself, Yoda, standing before them with his wooden walking stick, standing next to Qui-Gon who easily towered over the old green master.

 _How did he get there?_ Anakin thought to himself, but was pulled away from his thoughts as Yoda began to speak.

'An important day for you all, this is. The best of your class, you all are. Chosen for the Gathering, you have been. A great honour for all Jedi, this is. Me and Master Jinn, accompany you we will. Take us to Ilum, this ship will. There the Gathering commence, it shall.' At this point he had turned around and started to walk towards the Crucibles open cargo door. 'Come. To be late we do not want.' He said simply.

With that, everyone started to walk towards the ship that will take them to Ilum. While they were doing this Anakin gave Frey a light tap on his shoulder to get his attention.

'How did he get there so fast? I mean, isn't he really old or something?' he whispered curiously.

Frey took a moment to think before replying in a whisper. 'Well I have heard that he is over 850 years old but I have no idea how he can move so damn fast.'

'I know right.' Anakin said in response, at this point they were both inside the ship with the everyone else. 'And doesn't he shuffle everywhere he goes too?'

'Wish to ask something you do?' Both Anakin and Frey jumped from the voice of Yoda coming behind them. They both quickly turned around to see him standing there with a raised eyebrow on his old, wrinkled face.

Frey had both a look of shock and confusion on his features as he stared at the small green master. 'How? How did you get there? You went in this ship first.'

Yoda smiled slightly before he responded. 'Many skills a Jedi learns from experience they do. How to use them one must know.' As he said this he started to walk in front of them to go to the main area of the ship.

'Do you think you could show us those tricks sometime master?' Anakin asked the retreating from of Yoda curiously.

This made Yoda stop for a moment and lightly stroke his chin. 'Mmmm, No. More fun for me it is.' He said as he lightly chuckled and began walking again.

Anakin and Frey stood there for a moment, watching the old master join the rest of the group. 'Next time,' Anakin said to Frey. 'We make sure that Yoda isn't nearby.' Anakin said solemnly. 'At all.'

'Agreed.' Frey simply replied.

Palpatine was sitting in his office as he watched the Crucible lifted off the landing platform and flew out into the sky until it became a small dot and then nothing as it made its way out of the planet's atmosphere. Palpatine smiled, this smile was not the fake one that he showed to others to make them think that he was a kind old man, no. This true smile showed only the promise of pain and cruelty.

 _Time to set some things into action._ He thought to himself as he stood up and moved to his personal chambers in the chancellor's office. Once he entered he closed the door behind him and locked it, then he walked toward his wardrobe. Inside hung a range of formal clothes and robes needed for different political occasions, but he didn't need any of that right now. Instead he moved the clothes out of the way and opened the secret compartment at the back of the wardrobe and retrieved his Sith cloak. He put the cloak on, it darkness seemed to bleed into the rest of the room making it darker. He then moved towards his personal communicator and contacted his new pawn, he placed the call and waited a few moments before a hologram of an reasonably old man with snow white hair appeared before him, kneeling.

'What is thy bidding my master.' He said in a deep voice.

'Count Dooku.' He addressed his apprentice. 'I have a few tasks for you. As you know today is the day that a group of younglings are taken to Ilum to take part in the Gathering.'

'Of course master, I remember accompanying some of the younglings myself.' Dooku replied as small pieces of his former life as a Jedi leaked into his mind.

'Well,' Palpatine continued. 'I want you to retrieve a few things for me. One of them being a youngling. Tell me, have you heard of the youngling that your former apprentice has taken under his wing.'

'Yes master, I have. I have heard that he is an extremely talented with the force.' Dooku replied.

'Yes he is. I want you to take him and bring him to me. I wish to show him the true power of the dark side without the interference of his damn Jedi master.' Palpatine said with nothing but rage as he thought of all the times that he had tried to talk to the boy only to have his master interfere.

'It shall be done my master. Is there anything else?' Dooku asked curiously.

'Yes there is. On Ilum, unknown to the Jedi, there is an ancient Sith research base. Inside there is a Sith holocron containing valuable information about the research that had taken place there so long ago. I want you to bring me the holocron and anything relating to the research that happened there as well.'

'It shall be done my master.' Dooku repeated to his master

'Good.' Palpatine replied. 'Oh and one more thing.' At this point Dooku started to fall down to the floor as he struggled to breathe, he hand at his throat to try and stop the invisible force that was squeezing it. 'Fail to bring me either the boy or the holocron. And you will experience more pain then you can ever imagine. Do you understand?' he said in a low, anger growl.

Dooku couldn't speak, the only noise that was coming from him was pained gasps so he tried to nod his head which proved to be more difficult than he had thought. 'Good.' Palpatine said as he released he hold on him, causing the Count to breathe in large amount of the life giving air. 'I expect you to report to me once you have completed your mission.'

'Yes..., my mater.' Dooku said in between breathes.

Then his hologram disappeared as the transmission was terminated. Palpatine stood there for a moment and he started to smile as he thought of the plans that he had for the boy.

And his plans for what was to befall the Jedi and leave them destroyed and in ruin.


	3. Chapter 3

Ok so before the story starts, I want to say that I am sorry for not updating this story sooner but I do have reasons. One being life and the other being I didn't want to keep dividing the story up into more chapters then it needed to be.

So without further ado, it's time for a story that happen a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

Where they have magic space wizards with fricking laser swords. How is that fair at all?

Chapter 3: The Gathering part 2

The surface of Ilum was a cold, harsh and unforgiving landscape of arctic structures and mountains made entirely of snow and ice. The wind was always blowing the planets chill constantly across its landscape like how a fire would spread in a dry forest, unwavering and uncontrollable. It's power forcing any who tried to battle it to the nearby caves that were rich with kyber crystals. No one dared to challenge it, except for a lone figure cloaked in darkness. He made his way through the wind and the snow until he found his way to a cave that had icicles hanging around its entrance as if it was a creatures mouth opened wide with it teeth bared, ready to devour whatever comes in its path. The lone figure walked through the cave opening and entered the many tunnels that infested the entire planet. Once inside, the figure pulled off his thick hood to reveal the new apprentice of the Sith, Count Dooku of Serenno, former Jedi master of the order.

He looked around the area with his eyes and searched with his senses to see if there was anyone nearby. He knew that the chances of anyone following him were almost non-existent since he got there before the Jedi and their younglings thanks to his solar sailor ship, but with how his master had described his punishment if he failed this mission, he had to make sure that nothing went wrong. Once he was satisfied that he was alone and no one had followed him, he removed a small device from the pocket of his clothes and turned it on. The device then showed a blue hologram of a map, showing paths that forked and moved in every direction possible almost making the map impossible to read, but in one of the twisting paths shown a red mark where his destination is and a red line was connected to it which showed him the way that he had to take. And so he started walking.

After he had made countless turns in the labyrinth that hid under the surface of the planet, after crossing a multitude of bridges that seemed like it was going to break even if a mere feather would land on it, he had finally reached his destination shown by how the red line on the map had disappeared and the light started to blink. But when Dooku looked up, he saw nothing but a dead end made out of ice. This didn't surprise Dooku at all, considering of how important his master had said this research facility was, it was logical that the entrance for the lab would be hidden. He put the device back into one of his pockets and started to look around to see if there was anything that was out of place. After a few moments of searching he had found a hairline crack that would have been unnoticeable to any casual observer, so Dooku place a hand on the thin line and followed it along the wall. After he had finished following the thin crack, he had discovered that the line created a sort of archway in the wall of the dead end which made it look like a boulder was blocking the entrance, a very well disguised boulder blending almost seamlessly with its surroundings.

 _Clever_ , Dooku thought. _Very clever._

Dooku took a few steps away from the disguised door and used the force to grab it and pull it away from the wall. The concealed entrance started to groan with screeching metal as the door began to buckle slightly, causing the decorated exterior to crack and crumble in place that, once fallen away, showed the dull shine of a metal blast door. And as he pulled his extended hand back, the door gave one last screech of metal as it was ripped away from its bearing and flew past Dooku where it cluttered to the ice floor behind him. He took a moment to observe what he had done, the power he had just displayed. The ice wall that surrounds the now open doorway was covered in cracks and fractures that had dropped small chunks onto the floor, the disguised door so deformed that it was almost unrecognisable as a door. Dooku smiled to himself at the power he had obtained from becoming a Sith. Not even as a Jedi master would he had been able to rip the door away with such ease, not like he had just done as a Sith.

As he entered the now exposed research facility and looked around the dark and dusty remains of machines and other scientific equipment, he heard the hissing sounds of droids activating along with a clanking noise as they walked towards Dooku. Once they had gotten close enough, Dooku could see two sets of dull glowing eyes looking back at him. He couldn't make out much detail on how they looked because of how dark the room was but he didn't have to use a light source because the droids both ignited their own lightsaber's which placed the room in a blood red glow. The glow also helped Dooku to see some of the features the droids had and from the look of it, they were very old. Their dust covered chassis's and components were almost blocks of material filled with ancient technology which was unfounded in modern droids, their exposed mechanisms which allowed them to move would be considered beyond primitive by modern standards. But he still had to be impressed by them, they must have been hundreds of years old but they were still able power up themselves and move with relative ease so that they could try to stop the intruder that was before them.

 _Trying won't be enough._ He thought to himself with a smile as he drew his lightsaber and ignited it.

Dooku stood over the remaining smouldering parts of the droids breathing slightly heavily, lightsaber still ignited, and he had to say, that the droids that he had just fought were incredibly impressive. To begin with he had no doubt in his mind that they would pose a problem for him; they after all seemed like the training droids that the Jedi use to train the younglings. But these droids were different, while the training droids at the temple were programmed to a set fighting style and its styles attack; these droids that this Sith research base had obviously created didn't do that at all. Instead they changed from one style to another to try and defeat him, one moment they were using the Ataru lightsaber style and then jumped to the Juyo style and so on until they could break through his defences. And it wasn't just that either. They had also started to predict Dooku's attack with both his red lightsaber and his attacks with the force; he didn't even know how that was possible. His force attacks, just like all force attacks, wouldn't have been seen by the human eye let alone a robotic one. But somehow, they did.

But unfortunately for the now sparking heaps of metal that lay at his feet, he was a master of lightsaber combat thanks to his preferred lightsaber style form II, Makashi, and with a little help from his new power force lighting. It was a Sith technique, channelling his hate and anger into pure energy that leaps from his fingertips and at his enemies. He could still feel its lingering power play among his fingers. He closed his hand into a fist and looked around the dust covered facility entryway.

 _Now,_ he thought to himself. _I have a task at hand that needs to be finished._

He spent the next 20 minutes walking through the facility looking for where they might have placed the Sith holocron that his master wanted. He walked through abandoned hallways and looked into equally abandoned rooms which had all sorts of equipment, machinery, what must have been a barrack for personnel and a small assembly line that must have made the droids that he had faced earlier. He then made a turn after the assembly room and found a heavy set of closed doors which were the only closed doors within the facility that Dooku as seen so far. He walked towards it with the intention of using his lightsaber to cut his way through it, but as soon as he placed his lightsaber on the locked blast door, it hissed as it touched the door and the blade bent around it. Frowning, he took it away from the door and saw that there no marks on the door where his blade had struck, he couldn't even find a single scratch on its surface. Dooku then started to look closely at the door, placing his hand on the door as well.

 _Mandalorian iron_ , Dooku thought to himself.

There are very few materials in the galaxy that could resist the power of a lightsaber and Mandalorian iron was one of them. This did annoy Dooku slightly but this did mean that he was heading in the right direction, if what was inside the room was worth putting up this much security for it then what was inside must be important which could mean that it was the holocron that he was after. He was about to use the force and rip the door away like he had done with the hidden entrance door but stopped when he notice a old access panel that must have been used to open the door. He lowered his hand and placed it on the panel instead. He knew that like everything else in here was without power, except the droids that he had fought, and the likelihood of the generator that had powered this place to still be operational was highly unlikely, but that didn't mean that the electronics of the building won't working as well. All he needed to do was provide energy. He sent a small current of force lighting into the panel and gave it enough of a jump start that it caused the door that was closed moments ago to squeak open. The sound of metal scratching against metal rattled in his eardrums, which made sense since it must have remained closed for an age but it still opened with a screech.

Dooku took a step through the now open door and smiled at how useful his new abilities now were compared to a Jedi and yet he still had much to learn about the dark side from his master, but if that was to continue without any problems then he needed to complete this task. He looked at the room that he had just entered and discovered that he had just entered what must have been the facilities data storage judging by the rows of monoliths that were made by hard drives and circuit boards and there, standing on a pedestal was one of his objectives, the Sith holocron.

He walked towards it and inspected the pedestal in more detail to make sure that there were no other surprises if he takes the holocron from its resting place. After a quick look and feeling through the force, he discovered that the pedestal, if activated, would produce a small force field that would have stopped anything from removing the device that was hidden behind it. But, along with everything else electrical within the facility, it had lost its power to maintain the field for such an extended length of time and had de-activated leaving its prize for the taking. He picked up the device and smiled to himself. He has it. He has the holocron that his master wanted, which meant that the information within was very valuable. So valuable that it can help Dooku master more of his abilities that can make him powerful enough to become the master of the Sith, not the apprentice.

Dooku stopped himself and shook his head lightly. _Patience Dooku, patience._

He knew from his time as a Jedi that his master will dispose of him when his usefulness was at its end. He knew that if he wanted to take over then he will have to be careful with the actions that he takes. One wrong more and he will end up dead. So for now, he had to learn what he can from his master and wait for the perfect moment to take over.

Now that he has the holocron, he can now prepare for the oncoming Jedi and the special youngling that his master has taken so much interest with. It didn't surprise him when he had read the details that his master had sent him of who was coming. His old master Yoda had always liked teaching and helping younglings in the way of the force, so it was obvious that he would come. He was, at first, slightly surprised that his old apprentice Qui-Gon was attending as well, but after giving it some thought it made sense that he would attend to keep an eye on his own padawan to see how he did and to make sure that he would be ok given how important this boy was. He started to plan on how he would approach the problem at hand and then an idea appeared in his mind and it started to take root and made Dooku smile.

'That will do.' He said to himself. 'That will do nicely.'

Anakin was blinded. He couldn't hear anything except the sound of chatter coming from one side of him and the hum of the training remote that floated in front of him somewhere, but without taking the blind off he had no idea where it was exactly. He smiled slightly to himself. But it's not like he needed too. He felt what was going to happen before he heard it; the training remote started its so called unpredictable attack of firing the non-lethal blasters at him and so he moved with his training lightsaber in hand. It fired shot after shot at him and Anakin was deflecting each and every single one of them with great ease and precision. The one going for his left knee, a gentle move of his arm and it was deflected. The one aiming for his right shoulder, a raised guard dealt with it. The one zipping towards his chest, a simple flick of his wrist and it was stopped. All the while, Anakin was moving closer and closer until he spun around and hit the training remote which caused it to fly around the room and bounce off a few of the walls and objects in the room. This had raised a few shocked wows and one 'Watch it!' but that didn't bother him, instead he held out his hand and a few seconds later the training remote landed within his out stretched hand. He turned off the training lightsaber and placed it on his belt and removed the helmet that had blinded him and smiled knowingly towards his friend Frey who had a look of slight annoyance.

'You know, you are an unbelievable show off you know that?' Frey replied to Anakin who was walking towards him with the training remote.

'But it was cool though.' Anakin said as he throws the training droid towards Frey who caught the robotic sphere.

He gave Anakin a look before slowly nodding in agreement. 'Ok, yeah. It was pretty cool.'

Anakin's smile grow slightly larger as he walked towards Frey and took a seat beside him. From there he could see the rest of the communal room in the Crucible that was mostly made of varying shade of grey metal where it reflected the shine of the lights in the room. It was a large enough room where any of the younglings can train while the others could sit out of the way at the brown leather seats and desk provided; it was there on the other side of the room that Liza and the rest of the younglings were chatting with each other. Liza throw an annoyed look towards Anakin, her reply to his earlier stunt with the training remote, before returning to talk to the other younglings by her side.

Besides the younglings, there was no one else within the room. Master Yoda and Anakin's own master Qui-Gon had, as soon as they boarded the ship, stayed in the cockpit of the ship to prepare for their journey to Ilum. Anakin had started to frown slightly as he was reminded of how suddenly this rite of passage was announced without any form of notification beforehand. He was excited about being able to gain his kyber crystal and create his own real lightsaber, but it still rubbed him up the wrong way about being held in the dark about this.

'Let me guess,' Frey said which snapped Anakin from his thoughts. 'You're wondering why we weren't told that the Gathering was happening today right?'

Anakin looked at his friend before nodding. 'I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm glad that I can finally construct my lightsaber like anyone else. It's just that we weren't told that it was happening so soon. I mean, they could have said something you know. Even my master said that he would tell me why but so far he hasn't said a word about it.'

Frey took a moment before speaking. 'Well, you know how the masters act sometimes. They keep saying to master one's self in order to do anything so maybe it's that sort of deal, to see if we can deal with something so sudden. And come on Anakin, do you really think that your master wouldn't tell you anything without a reason? I mean he is literally the only Jedi I have seen that emits caring and understanding.' He then tapped Anakin's shoulder lightly. 'Yeah, has your master ever lied to you? Well, has he?'

Anakin took a moment to think before shaking his head. 'No.'

'Ok,' Frey responded. 'Has he ever given you any reason not to trust him?'

'No.' Anakin replied just as simply as before.

'Well there you go see. If he said he is going to tell why we weren't told that this was happening then that is what he will do. Now come on, let's practise a little before we get to Ilum.' Frey said as he walked towards the spot where Anakin had just trained until he noticed that Anakin had not followed but had stayed where he was.

A few moments passed. 'You're going off to find him and ask anyway aren't you?'

'Yep.' Anakin replied simply as he made his way to the door at the other side of the room. As soon as he reached the door and was about to open it, the door slid open and revealed Anakin's master Qui-Gon and master Yoda. Anakin for his part was surprised to find them there while Yoda continued to have a calm expression and Qui-Gon had started to smile at the sight of his apprentice.

'Hello Anakin.' Qui-Gon said. 'Let me guess. You got impatient and decided to come find me and master Yoda and ask why you were not told about the Gathering happening today correct.'

Anakin simply nodded. 'Well Anakin, if you and the rest of the younglings could take a seat then we shall explain why in a moment.'

Anakin went back to the seat that he had sat in that was next to Frey. Once he was there everyone gave the Jedi masters their full attention. Yoda took a few steps forward before speaking. 'Important, training is for younglings. Just as the Gathering it is. Much left to learn you all have. Wanted to see how much you have learned we wanted. Tested your reactions we did. Physical abilities are the only thing that makes Jedi, it is not. Mental abilities help a Jedi it does. Learn to think before action you all must.' He said as he looked at everyone.

'Arriving at Ilum we are. Prepare you all must.' And with that said, Yoda and Qui-Gon took their leave from the room to make the necessary preparations for the landing and as they left, everyone else had gotten off of their seats to prepare for the ritual that was about to commence.

Anakin breathed out a white mist as he looked at the interior of the temple that he, the younglings, his master and master Yoda had just entered and as Anakin looked around the large circular room that was made from pillars and walls that were inscribed with the words of ancient Jedi, Anakin could only think about how _cold_ he was. He could still feel the biting cold of the harsh winds in his face even though his was inside the temple. It was almost impossible to think that Jedi spend the time needed to build this temple on the planet with such conditions, but he reminded himself that the Jedi can accomplish incredible and almost impossible things.

Once he had a chance to warm himself up a little bit, he gave the room a more detailed observation. It took him no time at all to discover the massive ice wall that stood just behind a set of stairs; its surface looked to be made of chucks of solid ice all force together to hold a shape and it perfectly fills a stone archway which had more inscribed words much like the other pillars and walls in the room. Then, when he looked, he breathed out a small 'wow' as he saw the large chandelier like contraption that within its ring hung a large crystal that must had been twice the size of his master. Before he could get a better look at it, Frey tapped his arm and gestured towards Qui-Gon and Yoda as they took place in front of them.

'Welcome to Ilum. Now a question I want to ask. Know what powers a lightsaber do you?' As Yoda asked this, he used the force and brought out his own lightsaber and floated it in front of the younglings. After a few moments he used the force again on the slowly rotating lightsaber to ignite it with a hiss and casted a green glow on the younglings faces.

'A kyber crystal master.' Liza said almost immediately from the right of Anakin.

'Correct you are, young Rendix.' Yoda said as he brought his lightsaber to his out stretched hand and de-activated it, he then started to smooth the hilt of his weapon. 'The heart of a lightsaber, the crystal is. Find them in the crystal caves you will.'

'Umm, master.' Anakin spoke up to Yoda. 'I'd hate to burst you bubble but besides from the front door, I don't see any other doors or caves so where are they?'

Both Qui-Gon and Yoda began to smile before Qui-Gon spoke. 'Anakin, how many times have I told you? You can rarely trust what you can see.' He then proceeded to lift his hand and through the force, he gave his padawan and the younglings a sceptical. They all watched in stunned silence as the large mechanism that held the large crystal had started to turn, its rings spinning around it showing the slight shine of smaller crystals that Anakin couldn't see before because of how high up it was. As the rings turned a hidden from view stone window slid opened, a result of his masters control Anakin thought, and a ray of the planets sun struck the crystal and several lines of light came from the crystals many sides and danced along the walls as the crystal moved. After a few moments of the light display, the rays of brilliance moved towards the smaller crystals and as soon as they made contact with them, the beams were focused to the archway that contained the frozen waterfall and the scribed words around it light up as the ice began to melt. Soon enough, the was massive frozen waterfall started to turn into water and came crashing down where the water moved away towards the group and found it way past their shoes.

Once the water had rushed away and the ice had been dissolved, there standing in place of the frozen water fall were a few steps that lead to a stone opening where a few pillars, like the ones in the room with Anakin, stood and beyond them was a cave entrance that had a least three different paths to follow from what Anakin could see.

Yoda stepped to the side and pointed to the now revealed cave entrance. 'Kyber crystals inside they are. Find them you must. Also hurry you must.'

What Yoda had said caused confusion and before they could ask questions, Qui-Gon spoke. 'You see, you have until sunset before the frozen waterfall has reformed and covered the entrance.' This caused Anakin to look up at the top of the entrance to see if his master was right and he was. He could see the ice starting to reform as the sunlight started to slowly drop lower and lower until it would freeze over the entire entrance, forming a blocking wall that could trap them if they were not quick enough.

'So how long will it take to melt again once it has frozen?' Frey asked nervously from besides Anakin

'It would take another full rotation for the sun to be in the right position to melt it again so I suggest that you should start looking for your crystals.' Qui-Gon said as he looked at all the slightly nervous faces of the younglings, but when he saw his apprentices face, all he saw was confidence and self assurance. This cause Qui-Gon to smile, even when he was faced with something like this, he still eagerly accepted the challenge that was placed before him. So, after what had been said had finally sunk into the minds of the younglings, they all ran off into the caves to face whatever awaited them inside.

Anakin, along with Frey, were running through a corridor of ice trying to find their way around and to find their crystals. The others had ran off in different directions in hopes of beating the reforming ice and return to the masters with their crystals before they could get trapped and so far they have not hear or seen the others in their search for their prize. After a few more moments of running, Anakin and Frey ended up at a crossroads which went off in to three different directions, the fifth crossroads that the pair had seen so far.

'You have got to be kidding me.' Frey said as he stopped and looked at the paths in front of him with slight dread. 'This is getting stupid now, I mean how are we supposed to find our way around this place, let alone find our own crystals?'

Anakin stopped as well and tried to come up with an answer for his friend but it was hard for him to do so. His friend was right, the almost endless corridors and pathways that the caves presented was near impossible to follow since they all look identical to one another and this irritated Anakin. How was he, as well as Frey and everyone else, supposed to find their crystals? How? He then reached up with his hand and brought his fingers through his short hair and tried to think of how they were supposed to do this. Suddenly, he remembered what he and his master had talked about last night, before they were taken to Ilum.

'Wait,' Anakin said as an idea started to form within his mind. 'Before we came here, my master let me try out his lightsaber.'

'Really? He let you do that? I have to admit, you have a pretty cool master.' Frey replied.

'That's not the point.' Anakin responded with a slight shake of his head. 'The point is that while I was using it, he told me how kyber crystals have the same force presence as the Jedi who use them. So we should be able to feel them more strongly than any of the other crystals that are in here with us.'

'So we basically feel our way around then.' Frey said in simplicity.

'I think so yeah.' Anakin said as he proceeded to close his eyes and extend his feelings while Frey followed suit to try and find their way around. In Anakin's mind he could see the paths that were before him and started to travel down them. No, not seeing, more like extending an ever growing hand around him to feel his way, at each corner one of the many fingers of this hand would spread down the new corridor to see what lurked down it. He spent a few moments doing this, almost making a map of the area, before he felt something strange. Anakin couldn't quite describe what it was. It was like he was feeling a hole where one wasn't supposed to be there, like someone had cut out a piece of the natural force around him and left it there seeping its nothingness around itself. He began to probe the strange spot and as he got closer he felt cold, he felt... _something dark?_

'I know where it is!' Frey almost shouted which pulled Anakin from his searching and gave his friend a confused look.

'What?' Anakin said

'I know where it is!' Frey simply repeated again. 'Come on its this way.' He stated as he started to run full pelt down the corridor that was besides him.

'Hey wait up!' Anakin shouted as he started to run after his friend. He followed him at a run as Frey made sharp turns around all the corners that showed up, showing absolute confidence on where he was going. After a few more minutes at running at a break neck pace, Anakin started to slow down panting as he saw that Frey had quite suddenly stopped a few steps in front of him.

Anakin took his place besides Frey as he breathed heavily to regain his breath that his body craved him to take. 'Ok..., next time..., tell me when you are going to do that ok. And what was the rush?'

Frey lifted his hand and simply pointed to the other side of the room that they had entered. Anakin followed where his friend was pointing and he quickly forgot about his exhaustion as there, being held in place by two ice structures, was a kyber crystal, standing on a small platform..., over the edge of an abyss. The abyss was just nothing. And beside from the platform that held his friends crystal and the entrance they were standing at, there was no other structure in site. There were on other doorways, no spires or anything that could be used to cross the gap between the entrance and the crystal.

Anakin looked down at the chasm that lead to nothing but shadow, he whistled. 'You do not want to fall down in there.'

'Yeah no kidding.' Frey replied sarcastically. 'But there's my crystal. Now how do I get other there?'

Anakin started to judge the gap between his friend and the crystal. 'You could jump it.'

'Ha, very funny Anakin. But seriously, how do I get over there?' Frey repeated himself.

'Jump.' Anakin repeated. 'I mean, we have learnt in our lessons how to use the force to increase our physical abilities like jumping. So you can easily make that. It's what, 9 meters, maybe 10. You can make that.'

'What?' Frey replied in complete shock. 'I can't make that. You know I am not that good at using the force physically like that. I'll just end up falling down there.' He pointed knowingly at the chasm.

'What are you on about?' Anakin replied in actual confusion. 'Yes you can. You are just as good as anyone else in our class. Plus you heard what Yoda said, we are the best in our class. You can do this.'

Frey looked at the chasm again then towards his crystal with a nervous expression. '...I don't know Anakin.'

Anakin started to pinch the bridge of his nose with annoyance at the almost complete lack of faith and confidence that his friend had in himself. He was about to try and talk his friend into making the jump when suddenly he started to hear a ringing sound. He looked down the entrance that they had come through, the ringing sound wasn't that loud but it was defiantly noticeable.

Frey noticed his friend spacing out. 'Hey are you ok? You kind of spacing out there.'

'Can you hear that?' Anakin asked his friend, now hearing the sound much more clearly. It sounded like someone was constantly hitting a tuning fork, letting its ring spread out among the many paths that the caves presented.

'Ummm... Anakin, I don't hear anything.' Frey said in confusion as he looked at Anakin who was still transfixed on the path leading back the way that they had came.

'I'm going to see where that is coming from.' Anakin responded as he started to walk down the path.

'What!?' Frey said almost explosively. 'But what about my crystal? It's impossible for me to get the damn thing.'

As Anakin still walked down the path, he looked back with a smile at his friend. 'Hey. We are Jedi. We are supposed to do the impossible.' And with that he left his friend to deal with his crystal, while he went to find the source of that ringing sound.

Anakin took turn after turn in the ice labyrinth while he followed the ringing sound that called him, beckoned him to find it with each step that he took. With each cracked corner that Anakin passed, the sound grow louder and louder until he suddenly entered a large opening made of solid ice where the light that had somehow entered the cave was refracted off its many sides and lit the room brilliantly. Anakin didn't wonder how the light had entered the room in the first place; instead his focus was solely focused on the prize of his search, his kyber crystal, standing on an ice made pedestal. Now that he was this close to it, it's beckoning ringing sound was crystal clear to his ears and he could feel the force come off it in waves, almost as if it was a heart pumping the force towards him to grab his attention.

He started to run towards his goal. _Finally._ He thought to himself. _Finally I will be able to get my crystal and I will finally be able to..._

Before he could finish his thought, he smacked into an invisible wall and fell flat on his back.

'Ooooowwwwwww.' Anakin moaned as he rubbed his hands onto his now aching forehead. He rolled to his feet unsteadily and looked to see what he had just ran into. After a few moments of looking he finally found the ice wall that he had ran head first into, the reason that he couldn't see it before was that it was almost perfectly transparent. If it wasn't for the fact that he could touch its cold surface, the slight light that reflected off it in small places and the large pounding headache that he had then he would have thought that it wasn't there at all. He then started to use his hand to feel where the almost invisible wall was and to see if it covered the entire section that held his crystal. He got frustrated when he found out that the wall did covered the entire section that had his crystal and with the ringing sound still blaring in his ears, he tried whatever he could to get through the wall. He gave the wall a few hits with his fists to test its strength and the wall was, unsurprisingly, still intact without a mark.

 _Ok._ He thought to himself as he took a few steps back from the wall and extended his hand. _Let's try this._ He called upon the force and unleashed it onto the wall in front of him, letting its power crash against it which caused the room to shake slightly and some fractals to fall to the ground. But the wall still stood without a single mark and this frustrated Anakin further. Force push after force push, each one getting stronger and stronger rattled the room but the wall did not crack or even crumbled, it just stood there and this infuriated Anakin further until he didn't even use the force anymore and just started to use his fists against the ice wall.

'Why... wouldn't... you... break!' He shouted in-between his punches but stopped after a few hits because his hands had started to ache from both punching the wall and the cold that had seeped into them. Anakin then turned around and leaned on the wall more frustrated and angry then he had entered. How was he supposed to do this? He couldn't just give up and let his master down by turning up without his crystal in his hands. But he couldn't stay in the caves forever because if he did then he would be trapped within the caves for a full cycle by the reforming ice waterfall. What disappointed words would his master tell him if he did show up without anything in his hands? He stopped and looked up with curiosity leaking into his features. What _would_ his master tell him in this situation? Anakin stopped and thought of what his master would tell him and then his master's voice started to echo through his mind.

 _Anakin,_ his master's voice rang in his mind. _You need to calm down. You can't always muscle through whatever challenge that you are faced with. Stop and think, let the living force guide your hand._

Anakin got off the wall and faced it again. 'Ok, let's try this instead.' He said to himself as he placed his hand o the ice cold surface and extended his senses. Through the force he could feel the barrier that was in his way, he felt how large it was, how thick it was and how strong it was. He started to move his hand around the wall letting the force guide him to do what he needed to do and through the force, he moved to the side of the wall and stopped a meter or so away from the edge of it as he felt that out of all the places the wall had, the force showed him that this was the weakest part of the wall and all that was needed for it to fall, was to add a little pressure. Anakin started to apply that pressure and the wall beneath his fingertips started to crumble as its weakness was taken advantage of.

After a few moments of Anakin causing the wall to turn into chucks of broken ice that fell onto the floor with cracking sounds rattling his hears, Anakin opened his eyes and he saw the passageway that he had made leading into the room and he smiled. He walked through the opening, bending down slightly to get pass, and moved towards his goal, his kyber crystal. It was smaller than he had expected it to be; about a third of his finger, and it was completely white with no signs of any colours. He reached out with his hand and picked it up where it settled in the palm of his hand.

 _I did it._ He thought to himself. _Now, it time to get out of here with everyone else._ He turned around and stepped through the opening he had made and was about to walk back though the entrance that he had come from but stopped as he saw a dark cloaked figure stood in front of the entrance, smiling at him.

Frey was pacing with nerves back and forth along the edge of the chasm debating whether or not to actually try to make the jump to gain his crystal. But every time that he thought about doing it, he looked back into the chasm that lead to darkness and stepped away from the edge and begin pacing in anxiety again. How was he supposed to do this? He wasn't strong with the force, he wasn't strong physically and he wasn't even that good with a lightsaber. He started to move his hand through his hair to try and help him think but every time he tried to think something, his mind always ended up back at the fact that he had to jump. But he couldn't. He just couldn't.

 _Yes you can._ Anakin's voice rang out within his mind. _You are just as good as anyone else in our class. Plus you heard what Yoda said, we are the best in our class. You can do this._

Frey stopped and thought about that. About how no matter how unsure he was about himself and his abilities, Anakin always told him that it was rubbish. How no matter what happened, Anakin always believed that Frey was just as good as anyone else in their class. No matter how many times that Frey ended up backing out of doing something because of his insecurities that he had about himself, Anakin always helped him to show that he could do it.

 _We are Jedi. We are supposed to do the impossible._ Anakin's word rang out in his mind again.

'Ok.' He told himself. 'Ok, I can do this. I can do this.' He said as he took a few paces away from the edge and started to focus solely on his crystal on the other side and what he needed to do. 'I am a Jedi. A Jedi can do the impossible.' He told himself before he ran towards the edge and jumped with the assistance of the force aiding him. He sailed over the gap and landed roughly on the platform that held his crystal.

He stopped and looked to make sure that he had made it. 'I did it. I did it!' He shouted excitedly as he revelled in what he had accomplished. With a smile firmly plastered onto his face, he moved towards his crystal and removed it from the ice structure that held it.

He smiled again at the fact that he had acquired his crystal. _Ok,_ he thought to himself. _Now I need to get out of here. But first let's find Anakin and see if he needs help._ With that in mind, he used the force to jump back over the ledge and ran out through the entrance to find his friend so that they could both get out of the caves.

'Impressive young one.' The cloaked figure spoke in a deep, rich voice to the still surprised Anakin. 'For you to be so young yet have such an affinity with the force is remarkable. With time and the proper training you would become quite the Jedi, even if you didn't use the true power of the force.'

Anakin still looked at the figure in front of him with nothing but surprise and suspicion. Apart from his mouth which was surrounded with a well trimmed white beard, he couldn't make out any more details about the being before him. He was obviously a trained force sensitive because if he wasn't than Anakin would have been able to sense him before he even had the chance to surprise him, but here he was, standing in front of him without alerting him to his presence at all. Anakin had tried to sense him while he was in front of him but felt the same emptiness that he had felt before, the same cold feeling that covered the fleeting feeling of anger. The type of anger that Anakin had only felt once before back on Naboo where his master and Obi-Wan had face the Sith warrior. He still had nightmares about feeling his overwhelming anger with his strong yet untrained senses at the time that ended up with Anakin sitting up at night in a cold sweat.

Anakin took a nervous swallow and looked at the being with caution. 'Who are you and why are you here?'

'Ahhh.' The figure replied. 'How rude of me, let me introduce myself. My name is Darth Tyranus and as to why I am here, well I have come to give you an opportunity.'

Anakin's suspicion grew at his reply. 'What do you mean opportunity?' He tried to keep Tyranus talking so that he could try and figure a way out of the room and return back to his master and the others but so far he couldn't run out of the needed entrance because Tyranus was blocking it easily and Anakin was pretty sure that he wouldn't just let him walk away.

Tyranus smiled. 'Why, the opportunity to give you the true power of the force. Not the mere half use that you and the Jedi implore. If you come with me, then it secrets shall be revealed to you.'

'Do you mean the dark side?' Anakin asked.

'Yes, I do.' He replied simply.

'Well, thanks for the offer but I don't think that it will work for me.' Anakin said with some effort to seem confident.

Tyranus simply smiled. 'Would you really just return to the Jedi that easily? They do of course preach that they follow the will of the force but ask yourself this. If the force told them something but it doesn't follow their traditions or views or threatens their political power, would they follow its will or would they simply continue with traditions? Was it not tradition that almost had you rejected from the Jedi Academy and thrown back into slavery? Was it not its traditions that left your mother in slavery on your home world?'

As Anakin listened he started to think about how the Jedi council almost rejected outright that he should be trained the first time they had meet him because he was too old and that didn't meet with their traditions. He remembered how he was told that to become a Jedi that he would have to leave everything he knew behind. Everything being his mother, who he could never see again.

'But,' Tyranus continued which snapped Anakin from his thoughts. 'If you come with me, none of that would matter. You could go back home and free your mother yourself and punish those who had enslaved you and hurt both you and your mother. If you come with me, then you can receive the power to do just that and more. With your potential, you would be able to stop anything from happening to you and your mother. You could insert your will onto others and put right all the wrong doings in this galaxy. You would become something far greater than any mere Jedi could ever hope to become. So, will you join me?'

Anakin thought about what he said. About how that if he joined him then he would not only save his mother, but become so powerful that he could stop all the wrong in the galaxy and punish those who deserve it. He thought about the Jedi and how they didn't try and help his mother because it was against their rules that they would never break... rules that his master had always ignored if he thought there was a better way. Anakin started to think about all the times that his master had talked to the council to try and change its rules about making emotional connection with others and all the times that when he was troubled with anything, his master would always be there for him to help him. He remembered all the times that his master had told and teach him how to feel his emotions and understand them instead of locking them away like the other Jedi. Anakin then started to think about all the times that Frey and Obi-Wan had helped him as well, about how he would trust them in an instant. Anakin then realised that there were people in the Jedi that he trusted, that he believed in and they would always help him.

Anakin gave a look of steely determination as he looked at Tyranus. 'Again, thanks. But my friends and my master have always been there for me and I'm not going to let them down by joining you. I will be what my master and mother will want me to be. I will be a Jedi.'

Tyranus gave the young boy in front of him a disappointing look before sighing. 'I had hoped that you would have seen reason in my words but, alas, you have not. But you see, my offer was not a choice. You are coming with me boy.' As he said this he brought out a lightsaber and ignited it which bathed the room in a blood red glow. 'Willingly or otherwise.'

But before he could have taken his first step towards Anakin, he flew towards the side of the room and crashed into the solid ice wall which momentarily stunned him. Anakin then looked towards the entrance in surprise and saw Frey standing there, lowering his outstretched hand.

'So who' your new friend?' Frey asked with a slight smile that was trying to hide his nerves.

'Less talking and more running!' Anakin shouted as he ran out of the room with his friend so that they could escape from the recovering Darth Tyranus.

As they ran down the caves ice covered passageways, Anakin asked Frey a question that he had just thought of. 'Hey, how did you get so close without tall, dark and creepy noticing you?'

'Well he was so focused on you that I managed to get close enough while I was suppressing my presence.' Anakin thought about this as they ran down corridor after corridor and it did make sense. Frey was extremely gifted when it came to suppressing his force presence; even Anakin himself had a slight difficulty with the ability.

'Also,' Frey spoke which gain Anakin's attention. 'Could we talk about this when there isn't a crazy guy chasing after us?!'

'Fair enough.' Anakin replied. 'We such be getting closer to the exit. It just a few more turns and then we're high and...' Before Anakin could finish his sentence he collided with something and fell with a smack to the ground. He then looked up as he rubbed his head for the second time to see what he had collided with this time and discovered that he had collided with none other than Liza Rendix.

She looked up and as soon as she saw Anakin, her features instantly curled into distaste. 'Look where you're going idiot.'

Ordinarily, Anakin would have a rebuke ready to go, but remembering who was following them he let it slide. 'Look, now is not the time. We need to get out of here now.'

'Ha.' She laughed. 'What? So just cause you somehow managed to get your crystal everyone else has to stop what they're doing so you don't have to waste your precious time? No. I am staying here until I get my crystal.'

'No.' Anakin said with both annoyance and emergency. 'You don't understand, there's...'

'Oh no, I understand.' Liza interrupted him. 'Just because you are the so called chosen one from prophecy, doesn't mean that everything has to revolve around you!'

She would have continued with her rant, but she was suddenly pushed down by Anakin as he shouted, 'Hit the deck!' And as the ground came to meet them, arcs of lighting bolted over their heads and struck the wall in front from of them where scorch marks burned into existence.

Liza looked back at Darth Tyranus with a shocked expression. 'Who the...'

Anakin grabbed her again and pulled her up to her feet. 'Forget asking, just run!'

Not bothering to reply, Liza ran with Anakin and Frey but that didn't stop them from hearing the Sith. 'You cannot hide from me boy. I will find you and bring you to my master.'

They didn't pay much attention to his words though, they only focused on running down the corridors of ice and stone that was in front of them. Once they had been running for a few minutes, they ended up in an opening within the caves, which had icicles of varying sizes hanging from its stone ceiling, that they all recognised as a sort of landmark that told them that they were at least 10 minutes away from the entrance, 5 if they were running towards it which they were planning on doing. That was until Frey and Liza both stopped at the exit that would have lead them back to the temples entrance and back towards the waiting masters, when they noticed that Anakin had stopped in front of the opening that they had just came through and he was looking back into its ice pathway.

'Umm, Anakin.' Frey said in a mixture of confusion and panic. 'Why are you standing around when there is quite literally a bad guy who wants to kill us?!'

Anakin continued to look around the room that they were in as he responded. 'We have to try and slow him down.'

'What?!' both Frey and Liza said in shocked union.

Liza's hand went straight to her face as she slowly pulled them down over her nose and mouth. 'This is a new level of stupidity even for you. Do you honestly think that you can stop him? He just shot lighting out of his hands; there isn't much you can do about that.'

When Anakin turned around to face them, he didn't look annoyed like he usually be when Liza berated him, but he had a look of concern. 'That isn't what I meant. I meant that we can try to slow him down not take him down. You guys seen what he was willing to do if people got in his way, what do you think will happen to the others if this guy finds them? That he'll just step aside and wave them on their way? No. He'll just kill them, we can't let that happen. So if we can slow him down enough so that everyone has a chance to get out of here and warn my master and master Yoda then we have a chance. Besides, this is what a Jedi would do. Help to protect others.'

Liza looked at Anakin with nothing but shock, even Frey had a similar expression on his face. It wasn't the fact that Anakin spoke with an overlaying confidence that promised that they could do something that was impossible in her mind. It wasn't the fact that he stood like an immoveable stone showing he was willing to stay and try to do whatever he could to slow the Sith down. The thing that surprise Liza the most was how Anakin spoke with nothing but concern and kindness for his fellow Jedi that show that he was willing to do whatever he could to try and help them.

'Look we don't have long.' Anakin said which broke Liza from her thoughts. 'Even if we did run he would just catch up with us and stop us before we even reach the exit. We have to slow him down. I do have a plan. It's not a great plan, but it's better than nothing. You guys just need to trust me.' Liza looked towards Frey who was staring at Anakin blankly, waiting to see his response. He wasn't going to agree with this insanity, was he?

Frey started to rub his forehead his hand. 'You do know how absolutely mad this is right?'

Anakin simply nodded.

Frey sighed in response. 'Well it's not as mad as I am. Alright, what is this terrible plan of yours?'

'You're joking right?' Liza said while looking at both of them in utter disbelief at how they were agreeing to what she thought was a suicide mission. 'This is going to get us killed.'

'And if we do nothing then who is going to die because of that?' Anakin asked solely at Liza. 'Look, you just have to trust on this ok.'

Liza stood there for a moment before shaking her head. 'No. Just because you have a death wish doesn't mean you can drag me into it as well. I plan on living so I'm out of here.' She said firmly. And with that, she turned around and proceeded to run down the length of the corridor that will eventually lead to the exit of the crystal caves. Anakin watched as the outline of her shadow disappeared from the corridor floor as she turned a corner, Anakin would have been lying if he said that he didn't think that she was going to at least help. Even though they have butt heads on more occasions then Anakin could count, she was a skilled Jedi when it came down to it, but if she wanted to get away then at least they should be able to buy her enough time to tell the master's so that they could get everyone else off planet before Darth Tyranus could hurt them.

As he turned around, he found that Frey was looking down the corridor that Liza had just exited through. 'Are you alright?' Anakin asked his friend.

Frey looked at Anakin. 'Yeah. I just thought that she would try and help you know.'

'Yeah, I understand what you mean. But if she can get to the others and warn them then that gives them sometime to get everyone together and off this planet.'

'I guess.' Frey said simply. 'So, about this plan of yours.'

Liza was running down corridor after corridor within the crystal caves, sprinting towards the exit that would allow her to escape the danger that lurked in the caves and to the safety of two masters. A danger that still sent frightening energy through her limbs that caused them to move with all the might that she could muster so that she could leave the caves that much quicker. She could still feel the terror fray her nerves as she remembers the lighting that had leapt from that mans fingers and how it crashed against the wall leaving its black mark, she remembered how as it past behind her neck she could feel the raw destructive power that had left the hairs on the back of her neck standing on ends. If Anakin and Frey wanted to face that then they can be her guest and face him, why should they even try to deal with that? Why should she even trust him when he said that they could actually face something like that?

 _He'll just kill them, we can't let that happen._ Anakin's voice rang out inside her head.

This made Liza slow down slightly, and as she did, more of Anakin's words started to leak more into her head until she came to a complete stop in the passageway that she was in. the hard echoing of her running footsteps dimming and stopping as well. It was true, she realised. It was true that the Sith would catch up to them and kill them even if they all did run and if anyone got in his way, he would just cut them down with his blade or used his powers to kill them. She looked to look back at the way that she had just come. She wasn't really considering going back was she? The mere idea of even seeing the Sith again sent terror through her limbs, crying out to her to run, run away to live, to survive. If she stayed with them, they would have all died.

 _Besides, this is what a Jedi would do. Help to protect others._ Again, Anakin's words shouted within her ears.

Again. He was right again. They have been trained to be peace keepers, to be guardians for those who could help themselves and to help any who needs it. Including two idiots who were about to face someone that could easily kill them. Liza know that she had showed nothing but a cold shoulder towards them, but in all honesty, she knew that they both were exceptional Jedi. Anakin may be cocky and arrogant with his abilities and Frey may not be that confident with what he could do, but they both showed bravery and kindness towards others that could rival any Jedi knight. And what had she done? The best student in her class had ran away in the first sign of trouble and left them there to deal with it alone.

She continued to look at the passage that beyond its halls, laid Anakin and Frey as well as a great evil. And in that moment she realised she had a choice. And so, she made that choice.

Anakin stood motionless in the room of stone and ice, the chill of the planet could still be felt through his winter clothes even so far inside the caves. He also felt nerves and impatience prod his mind and his body but he willed them back to keep his composure for what was to come, to hopefully follow his hastily thrown together plan and get out of the caves and away from the danger that stalked its corridors. He hadn't needed to wait for very long before Darth Tyranus had entered the room from the shadow of its entrance. His ignited lightsaber still looking as menacing as he first ignited it.

He raised his cloaked gaze towards Anakin and smiled. 'Hello, I'm so glad that we could meet again young one.'

'Well,' Anakin responded with some confidence. 'I can't say that I feel the same way.'

'I suppose that that means you haven't reconsidered my offer then have you?'

Anakin simply shaked his head.

'A pity.' Darth Tyranus replied in his deep and rich voice. 'But as I have stated earlier, this is not an offer that you can refuse. You will come with me.'

Just as he took a step forward Anakin spoke up. 'And what's your plan? You just pick me up and walk out of here? Well good luck with that. There are two Jedi masters here and they will stop you.'

Tyranus simply smiled. 'You hold to much faith in the Jedi. And as for leaving this place, there is more than one way to open a door just as there is more than one entrance to this place. The Jedi wouldn't notice what had transpired before it was too late and you will become another lost youngling, turned to the dark side.'

'Besides,' He added. 'even if they did notice, I have left a little surprise for them.' This caused Anakin to frown with caution. If what he said was true, and Anakin had no doubt that it wasn't, that means that his master would have to take care of whatever 'surprise' that he had left for them before he could get to them and it worked vice versa. If Anakin and everyone else tried to leave then they would be trapped by it as well leaving them facing Darth Tyranus on their own. But Anakin still held out hope for his master, he had faced and been in more dangerous situations that had sketchy odds of surviving at best but had still come out on top at the end of each and every one of those situations.

Anakin laughed slightly. 'Then you had better make sure that your 'surprise' will be able to do it right the first time and even then its odds of succeeding are pretty damn low.'

'Your trust in your master that he will save you and your confidence that you can escape me is unreliable.'

'What can I say,' Anakin said as he shrugged his shoulders. 'I can be a cocky guy. NOW!'

As soon as Anakin had given the signal Frey, from his hiding spot inside the large crack in the wall that had hidden him from sight where he had also suppressed his force presence, sprung from it and used the force to rip the some of the large icicles off from the ceiling with a crack and flung them like spears towards the cloaked visage of Tyranus. For Anakin and Frey, time seemed to slow down around them as the spears of ice spun slowly towards their target, the sheen on each of them crawling around the ice all the way from its broken base to its jagged tip flying straight towards Tyranus. And as the ice tipped spears moved towards Tyranus, he raised his out stretched hand and the icicles froze in mid air, their movement seeming to be pause in a single moment in time.

Darth Tyranus looked at the silent Anakin with slight anger. 'Did you truly believe that this would have harmed me?' He said in a dangerous tone as he caused the icicles that were still floating in front of him to crash into the back wall by the exit where it thunderously cracked into dozens of misshaped chucks. Frey had just gotten out of his stutter of shock that their plan didn't work and tried to move away to come up with something else, but he was stopped when Tyranus moved his lifted hand towards him and Frey was suddenly unable to move a single muscle.

'And as for you.' He growled towards Frey, still held captive within his grip through the force. 'Did you truly believe that you could fool me again with the same trick? That is truly both stupid and insulting boy.' Then he violently threw Frey with the force against a pillar of ice near Anakin where he made a sickening thud, leaving Frey gasping in pained breaths on the floor a few feet away from Anakin's right.

'As consequence for your actions, you should learn your place.' Energy started to play among fingers of his out stretched hand before lighting sprang forth and arced towards the still painfully dazed Frey. But as the lighting flew towards Frey, it struck an unintended target, a target that had suddenly positioned himself in front of the Frey to protect him, that unintended target was Anakin and as soon as the lighting slammed into his chest, he screamed

Qui-Gon's eyes suddenly burst open as he felt someone's pain through the force, someone who he barely had to try to recognise him.

 _Anakin!_ He thought to himself.

He immediately started to walk away from one of the old engraved pillar that he had been leaning against while waiting for everyone to return and towards Yoda, who was with the other younglings who had returned except for Anakin, Frey and Liza. As Qui-Gon got closer to Yoda, he saw that the old master had a frown on his wrinkled face and concern filled his ancient eyes, Qui-Gon realised that he must have sensed what he felt as well. Of course he felt it as well, he is the grand master of the Jedi order Qui-Gon reminded himself, but that wasn't what was important right now.

'Master, I assume you felt that too right?' he asked Yoda urgently.

Yoda nodded. 'Felt it too I did. Something wrong with young Skywalker there is.'

Qui-Gon looked towards the entrance to the crystal caves with concern. 'They must be in trouble; the caves wouldn't cause any of them to feel pain like that, not like what I felt from Anakin. We have to go in there and get them all out and away from whatever's or whoever's causing it.'

'Agree with you I do. Go you must. Stay with the younglings here I will.'

'Yes master.' Qui-Gon replied as he turned away and ran into the entrance of the caves, lightsaber already drawn within his hand, ready to be used at any given moment. As he entered the same thought kept running through his mind over and over again, like a recording that had been left on a continuous loop.

 _Hang in there. Hang in there for just a little while longer._

After he had entered the caves and ran down the corridor one the left, letting his senses through the force guide him towards where Anakin and the rest of the younglings were, hearing his own rushed foots echoing heavily of the walls around him. He continued without slowing down until he felt a tug through the force, urging him to duck. He followed that instinct and as he did, a red lightsaber buzzed above him in a wide swing that occupied the space where his head had been moments before. Qui-Gon followed through with a roll until he was back on his feet again, his emerald lightsaber hissing to life as he stared at his opponent.

 _A droid?_ He thought to himself. It wasn't a model that he was familiar with in his experience and it wasn't something new either given its thick and blocky chassis and other components that had clearly been exposed to the test of times, but it still showed a flexibility that matched the newer models of today, it had obviously been made to last. The droid in question simply returned its weapon back into a classical defensive position in front of it from the its previous position where it had tried to remove his head, and proceeded to move towards the Jedi master.

Qui-Gon's feature remained calm as the droid approached. _Just hold on little longer, just hold on._

Anakin later realised that the force lighting attack only lasted for a few moments but for him, it felt like it lasted for hours. Time seemed to slow to a crawl but the pain kept coming in almost overwhelming arcs, penetrating every fibre of his being causing them to scream in extreme agony. He didn't realise when he hit the floor with a thud to begin with, he only realised that once the pain had subsided and his vision had started to lose some of the dark spots that swam in his vision and within that vision stood Darth Tyranus above his body on the floor.

'Placing yourself in harm's way to protect your friend.' Tyranus said in a condescending tone. 'A useless quality to have. And what have you accomplished? You have simply made yourself an easier target for me to take back to my master and that sort of quality can get you killed a thousand times over. Although my master wanted you alive, he didn't say anything about being damaged.'

As he raised his hand towards Anakin's pained body to deliver another painful blast of lighting, he was interrupted by a shouting 'Nooooo!' from Frey as he raised up and charged at him, but he was pick up by an invisible hand at his throat that slammed him into the wall behind him, his hands at his throat trying to pry the pressure of it. Tyranus, who didn't even bother to look at when Frey tried to do whatever he was about to do, he had simply lifted his hand towards him and made a gesture like he had just caught something invisible.

'It's seems that your friend lacks common manners, a feature that should be addressed. And while I am at it, why don't I teach you both a lesson.' He continued in a cruel tone as energy started to once again play among his fingers and leaped towards the two young Jedi's in training and caused screams of pain to be ripped from their throats. Both of their bodies shacking and twitching in almost unbelievable pain, it rushing through them in a seemingly endless torrent of agony. Anakin saw nothing but a mixture of lighting and darkness playing around his vision, each taking control for but a brief moment but the one thing that was constant was the pain.

Pain that suddenly stopped with a surprised grunt from Tyranus as he flew across the room back into the pathway that he had came from.

Anakin tried to will his sight to see clearly without the black spots that still plagued them, to try and figure out what had happened. When his sight did clear slightly he saw an unsteady Sith lord on his knees trying to get back up again, Anakin also, after a small amount of time, noticed the large chucks of ice that must have been what had knocked him back towards the pathway, but who had thrown them? That answer was answered when he turned his still painful head towards the other side of the room there stood Liza, with raised hands.

 _When did she get here?_ He thought to himself, but even to him the thought seemed to be sluggish.

'Guys, bring the roof down on him now!' She ordered them as she raised her own hands towards the ceiling and tried to use the force to bring it down to trap Tyranus. Frey, needing only a quick shake to get himself focusing again, followed suit and join Liza in bringing the ceiling down and it was already having some effect. Cracks had started to appear with a low rumble sound like thunder and small rocks started to fall down as the mixture of ice and stone crumbled due to the impressive amount of pressure that both force users was placing on them through the force. But Anakin realised that it wasn't going to be enough, it wasn't going to be fast enough. Even with his sight, swamped with black spots that were starting to get gradually worse, he could make out the rising form of Tyranus, slowly, but rising none the less. Anakin knew that he had to help. He knew he had to do something or his friends will suffer and he couldn't, wouldn't let that happen. Not in any situation possible would allow that to anyone he cared about or anyone who needed help and right now, his friends needed his help. Anakin started to raise his hand, an act that cause more pain to lace through his body causing darkness to grow within his vision.

 _No. Not yet._ He thought to himself, forcing the darkness away and started to sharpen his focus to join the efforts of Frey and Liza. It took almost of his strength left with him to do it, but they did it. Through the force, Anakin knew that the ceiling was going to collapse around the entrance where Tyranus was standing unsteadily on his feet and soon enough, Anakin saw it happen as well. The cracks on the ceiling were ripped open with a shattering crack and large chunks rained down with a thunderous crash solely around the entrance. It was difficult to make out if Tyranus screamed his fury or not, if he did it was drowned out by the raining debris of rock and ice, but it was clearly seen on his face through the falling rocks. His features curled into a heated rage with eyes that boiled with hatred for them.

The image was quickly covered as the entrance was blocked with ice and rocks caked with dust, but it was an image that none of them would forget. Once the dust had started to settle, Anakin was pulled to his feet by Frey, the act causing pain to rocket through him again. He was talking to him, but Anakin could barely hear him, his voice a blurred sound that didn't register to him as a language. It wasn't long before Anakin's sight started to darken again, covering the fallen debris, Frey and Liza who were both caked with dust, even his hands started to become almost indescribable shadows. Where Anakin had before tried to batter the darkness away to stay awake, he instead let it take over to relieve him of his pain, losing consciousness as it did so.

The first thing that Anakin started to notice when he started to regain consciousness back was that he was lying down on a hard, uncomfortable bed. Its cold steel could be felt through his clothes as it was pressed against his back. The next thing that he noticed was breathing on his right side, light and even breaths taken in a calm rhythm. He opened his eyes in a flutter, squinting slightly as a hard white light was hanging above him, to look to see who was there and it was none other than his master, Qui-Gon, patiently waiting with his eyes closed and his head resting on top of his enclosed hands.  
'Master?' Anakin said in a light whisper, sounding slightly croaky.  
Qui-Gon opened his eyes and looked at him, a warm, relived smile blossoming onto his features. 'Anakin, you're awake.'  
'What... where...' Anakin started to ask before the memories started to fall back into place. The Gathering, meeting Tyranus and the collapsing cavern.  
'Frey and Liza are they...' He started to move and get up but immediately grunted in pain as the events of the last few hours really started to take their toll on his body.  
'Hey, easy Anakin.' Qui-Gon said as he gently placed his hand on Anakin's shoulder. 'You're in the Crucible's med bay, or what passes for one in this ship. And their fine. Frey only had a few marks that have been dealt with and Liza barely had a scratch, which is more then I can say for you. You have been treated so your injuries won't leave any sort of marks but you still need to rest and give your body time to properly heal itself.' He said the last part a stern authority that told Anakin that it wasn't a suggestion.

Anakin sighed and laid back down on the med bay bed or what passed as on the ship. It made sense to him, how the Crucible wouldn't have a very sophisticated med bay then the one back at the temple given that the most severe wound that they would have to deal with would be mostly cuts and bruises. 'Good.' Qui-Gon said in a small amount of relief. 'Now we need to know what exactly happened in the caves. We have already given a summary of what happened based on what Frey and Liza said, along with my own experience, to the council, but knowing them they will want a more in depth report of the incident and from what was gathered, you seemed to have the most interaction with whoever did this. You don't need to do this now, we can do this a little later if you would like.'

Anakin shaked his head. 'No. The sooner we get this done the sooner we can try and find this guy.'

Qui-Gon smiled slightly at his reaction, even now Anakin was still more than willing to do whatever he could to stop the person who was responsible for this. 'Ok then, start from the beginning.'

It didn't take Anakin long to tell his master what had happened with him and the so called 'offer' that Darth Tyranus had presented to him when he had collected his kyber crystal and the events that had transpired after, Qui-Gon for the most just listened until his apprentice had finished. 'Well, that is a rather disturbing development. But given your connection to the force and my past encounter with that Sith warrior, it's not completely unforeseeable.'

'Master. You said that you had an experience as well with Tyranus, what did you mean by that?' Anakin asked.

'Well, it appears that this Tyranus character had implored the use of some sort of droid that we haven't seen before, one that seemed to be expertly skilled at lightsaber combat and, more disturbingly, able to predict any actions taken through the force.'

'What!' Anakin said in utter shock. 'How is that even possible master?'

'Much like the council, I don't know. This is why they have asked for the droid to be taken back to Coruscant to be studied, although they may have a slight problem with it being cut in half though.'

'Oh,' Qui-Gon continued. 'and before I forget, Liza wanted to give you something before I told her and Frey to wait in the communal room while you were resting.' He then placed his hand inside the folds of his robes and pulled out something small shiny object.

Anakin took a closer look at it and looked surprised. 'My kyber crystal.' His mind started to reel back through his memorises trying to figure out when he had lost his crystal. When he started to run away from Tyranus he had it clenched within his fist, then when they had reached the opening that was their last standing ground against him, as it were, he had placed it in the pocket of his winter survival coat. And then..., the rest was a bit of a blur with where it was. it must of fallen out of his pocket when he fell to the floor. He reached out his hand and Qui-Gon placed it within it.

As Anakin looked at it, a thought crossed his mind that caused him to close his eyes and sigh. 'You know, if Tyranus didn't show up then Liza would have probably found her crystal and be creating her lightsaber right now.'

'Oh she did.' His master said, causing his apprentice to look at him in confusion. 'Apparently, after she had come back to help you and Frey and caused the room to collapse on the pathway Tyranus was in, she found her crystal in one of the destroyed icicles. Said that she should be thank you for trusting you that you would all make it back out ok and coming back to help.'

Anakin was truly surprised by this. Liza, who had since he had meet her, had done anything but trust him but apparently decided that he was worth trusting when push came to shove and decided to help him instead. 'Now,' his master said which gained Anakin's attention. 'I'll let you rest now, we should be back at Coruscant in a couple of hours so just sit tight ok.' He started to walk to the door and opened it with the panel but before leaving he turned around and asked. 'Do you want me to tell Frey and Liza that you're awake? From how the protested when asked to leave earlier, they were a little persistent in staying.'

'Yeah thanks master.' Anakin replied. Qui-Gon simply nodded and walked out of the door which closed behind him. Anakin started to look at his kyber crystal in his hand and started to smile. _Guess I'm starting to win her over._ He thought to himself in the empty med bay.

Dooku was not looking forward to this. There he was inside his ship, floating in the vastness of space faced with the concept of reporting back to his master with bad news. News that he was probably already aware of thanks to his other occupation within the galactic senate. He knew that it wasn't all bad news considering that he had retrieved both the holocron and a copy of the few remaining droids that was inside the old Sith base along with some data, but given how focused he was when it concerned the young Skywalker boy, his punishment would be severe. Not enough to kill him. His master still needed him to implement his plan that he has constructed over many years, but he would undoubtedly receive some form of torment from his master.

Not wanting to put it off any longer, he removed himself from his seat and called his master. He didn't have to wait long before he was greeted with a hologram of Darth Sidious that was seething with anger. 'I am most disappointed with you my apprentice. Not only have you failed to bring me the boy but you have also allowed yourself to be revealed to the Jedi and their council.'

'My apologies...' Dooku started to say but was stopped when he felt an invisible force squeeze his throat, causing him gasp in struggled breaths.

'Your apologies cannot erase your mistakes.' Sidious said in his rage filled growl. 'And it also appears that you have allowed the Jedi access to a droid from the facility, they could learn its secrets!' more pressure was added to the force at his throat but he could also feel some of that pressure snake between rips, rips that started to crack which caused him to grunt in pain, but it was chocked out instead by the ever increasing pressure on his neck.

'Is there anything else that you have ruined?!' In response, one of Dooku's hands pulled away from his throat and entered the folds of his tunic, shaking all while doing the action, and fished out the Sith holocron he had taken from the facility. The pressure on both his neck and rips was instantly removed and Dooku gasped in large amounts of air to remove the sting that was inside them. Once he had composed himself slightly, he looked back up to his master who was looking solely at the holocron.

'You have retrieved the holocron.' His master responded.

'Yes master. I have also acquired an intact droid that we can study as well as some data from the computers that had survived.' Dooku said in a slightly quick pace, his pain giving his voice a slight edge.

Sidious took a moment to look at his pawn before sneering. 'It looks like that you have not completely failed. Send the holocron to me and send the droid and data to Dr Writte on Argazda so that he can get to work immediately, I will further him with instructions once they have arrived.'

'Yes master.'

'And Dooku.' Sidious said which caused his apprentice to look back up. 'If you fail me again, you will not live long enough to regret it.' He said in an angry growl before his hologram turn off as the connection was severed, leaving Dooku alone in his ship. He looked at the spot where his master had been moments ago with nothing but silent rage. He will pay for he has done to him, he will be made to suffer at his hands for each of his actions towards him. Dooku stopped himself before the train of thought could go on any further, patience, he told himself. If he rushed and confronted his master before he was properly prepared then he would die in terrible agony, so for now he will wait. But when the time comes, he will kill his master and take his plan for the galaxy as his own and rule it with an iron fist.


	4. Chapter 4

**Hello guys, now I want to say a few things before we begin we story time.**

 **First off, thank you to all those who are following this story and favoriting this story, it means a lot to someone who literally just started writing a couple of months ago so, again thanks. The same goes to the guys and gals who leave reviews, they help a lot too.**

 **Second is that I am going to try and get a new chapter out each month so you guys don't have to wait too long for an update so hopefully that will work out ok.**

 **So with all that out of the way our story begins a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away**

 **Where there is a person who looks a LOT like Samuel L. Jackson.**

Chapter 4: A call from a Count

Anakin reeled back quickly, taking a few steps before one of his hands went to his now aching jaw, rubbing it slightly. 'Would it kill you to be slightly less intense when we train? Seriously, I think I end up with more bruises from you then I do from everyone we've met on missions.'

'If I did then you would get too cocky and then pirates or any of the other unsavoury characters we meet would take advantage of that and would either shot you or stab you.' Qui-Gon rebuked softly, remaining in his fighting stance, hands held loose but ready. 'And I think that I heard from somewhere that those can hurt quite a bit more than a punch. Besides, your 15 years old now, I'm sure that you can take some hand to hand combat training.'

'I still prefer using my lightsaber though.' Anakin mumbled, remembering what he had to go through four years ago to get the crystal needed to make his lightsaber. He had been able to make it once he had arrived back on Coruscant and after he had given his account of events in the crystal caves to the council, causing some of the member of the council to gasp slightly at the mention of the new Sith apprentice and when he mentioned that he had a master, the councils arguments started to rise. After that, Yoda said that Anakin could leave so that he could get started on his lightsaber while the council and his master discussed about what to do with the new knowledge of the latest interaction with the Sith.

It didn't take long for him to find the old droid Professor Huyang in one of temples workshops where he went over how to make a fully functioning lightsaber and how Anakin should use the force to chose which pieces would serve him best. He ended up choosing a simple design with thick ridges for the handle and slightly bulky controls for its ignition, once the parts had been laid out before him, Anakin started to work immediately while the droid professor started his lecture on how to correctly build a lightsaber with the help of a diagram. But it hadn't even been 5 minutes before Anakin sounded off his triumph of success that cause the droid to turn and look at the assembled lightsaber.

'I'm finished.' He had said.

'I will be the judge of that young one.' Huyang said in its strangely echoing synthetic voice as it picked up the lightsaber and began to inspect it more closely, partially removing the casing to see the circuitry inside. It had been slightly amusing to Anakin when he saw the Professors surprised reaction when it found that the lightsaber before it was built to perfection. It couldn't even see a single component that was out of place even by the smallest degree. Normally it would take a youngling a couple of tries to build a lightsaber before it was built correctly.

It was around the same time that Qui-Gon had entered the room, seeing his apprentices with a look of satisfaction on his face.

'If I didn't know any better, I would say that you have finished already Anakin.' He had said.

'Yep.' Anakin had replied with. 'I mean, I am pretty gifted with tinkering so are you really that surprised that I finished so quickly master?'

'What did I say young Skywalker? I will say when you are done.' Huyang electronic voice had said in a slight annoyed voice. 'For all you know, you could have made the containment field faulty or you could have inverted the direction of the focusing lens.'

'Oh, well have I?'

The professor had taken a moment before giving a slight sigh, a strange action to take for a being with no lungs, and saying 'No.'

'May I have a look?' Qui-Gon had asked. Huyang obliged and gave Anakin's first lightsaber to the Jedi master who, once the weapon was in hand, let his senses flow through the lightsaber. He wasn't surprised in the least when his senses told him that Anakin's weapon was perfectly created and considering that Anakin had created a pod racer while he was back on Tatooine, this must have been something as an afterthought for his apprentice.

'Well done Anakin.' He had said as he passed it back to its creator. 'But don't let your pride cloud your sight too much. Someone can easily manipulate that to their advantage in any situation.'

'You know master,' Anakin had responded. 'You could have just let me have this one for once.'

'Well if I did then I wouldn't be a good teacher for you now would I?'

'Anakin, focus.' Qui-Gon said which snapped Anakin out of the past and into the present. 'And while a lot of Jedi are more comfortable with their blade, there have been situations where such Jedi have lost their saber in combat and have been forced into hand-to-hand combat where they were extremely unfamiliar with it and died because of it. You must understand that in our occupation, it is best to be prepared and not need it then be unprepared and need it.'

'Now concentrate.' Anakin's master instructed. 'Unless you wish to be hit again?' He said in slight sarcasm as he approached his padawan to restart the fight. Immediately afterwards Anakin had to block a swing that was barrelling towards his stomach, then he managed to deflect another aiming towards his head where he pushed his master's attack away from him. Anakin took the moment where his master was slightly unbalanced because of the block, and began to attack his master body, trying to knock the breath out of his body to gain an upper hand. Qui-Gon managed to block the attacks but ended up losing ground which literally had his back up against a wall. While in any other situation, this would normally make the Jedi master slightly more cautious in the fight and nothing more, he found that pride had also risen for his apprentices level of skill as a fighter at such a young age, he had no doubt that he will become a strong warrior that would be feared as an opponent.

During the next attack that Anakin throw, Qui-Gon went to grapple his arm to try and gain a new advantage over his padawan by throwing him, but Anakin anticipated the move and held onto him and turned it into a game to see who could kick the others feet from under them. Qui-Gon tried to release himself from the grip but Anakin's grip was like iron and before he knew it, Anakin had kicked his legs out from under him and flung him over his shoulder where Qui-Gon continued to slam onto the temples cold stone floor. He had turned around on the floor just in time to see Anakin standing over him, ready to deliver the punch that would win him the fight.

'Looks like I win master.' Anakin said slyly just before he began the final attack. Anakin was surprised to say the least when he discovered that instead of throwing a punch and stopping midway and winning the fight against his master, he instead was thrown onto the floor next to Qui-Gon, who had grabbed his padawan's hand, kicked his legs from under him and pulled him down, where he proceeded to pin Anakin down with his leg and hand while the other hand was thrown towards his face before it stopped an inch from his nose.

'It looks like that you still need to stop gloating before you actually win a fight.' Qui-Gon said to his apprentice in a slightly humours voice with a smile. 'If you do, then your opponent can take advantage of you and make you look like a fool, like I have.' With that said Qui-Gon stood up and held out his hand to help Anakin back up.

Once Anakin was back on his feet, he looked back at his master. 'Well if that's true about me then so is the fact that you show off whenever you can.' He replied with the same amount of humour that his master had.

'Non-sense Anakin. I merely use my great experience for any needed situation that arises which suits the rank of a Jedi master.'

Anakin gave his master a questioning look. 'That still sounds like showing off.'

'Oh,' Qui-Gon replied with. 'Then it probably is. But I can get away with it.'

Before Anakin could form a comeback to continue with his masters joking, Obi-Wan entered the room with a serious face. 'Master, Anakin. The council have asked for our presence immediately.'

Anakin, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan made their way through the corridors of the temple with some urgency in their step, heading straight towards the elevator that would take them to the High Council Chamber at the top of the High Council Tower. While they were hurrying, Anakin remembered the first time that he had approached the council of master Jedi's when his master had first found him, still wearing his tattered, sand dirtied clothes, standing before the collected masters questioning gazes. He had learned as soon as he entered the Jedi's ranks that being summoned by the council normally meant something big has happened or they needed Jedi to be sent to handle a serious situation.

And with all this in mind, Anakin found that he was asking himself. _What's so important that we need to be involved?_

As they drew closer to the elevator doors that would take them to the top of the tower, Anakin saw another Jedi, leaning patiently against the wall next to the metal doors who started to stand up straight once they had noticed that they were coming. It didn't take long for Anakin to recognise who the Jedi was. The long copper ponytail, the dark eyes and the way that she held herself with nothing but confidence only coming from being the best in class.

'Hey Liza, how are you?' Anakin asked his fellow Padawan.

'Fine.' She said simply, which compared with a couple of years ago when she couldn't stand Anakin, was a much friendlier greeting than he would have expected back then. But ever since their little run in with that Sith lord during the Gathering, she had started to show a gradual acceptance towards him and he was grateful that he didn't have to deal with any of the sly comments that were so common back then. She had also gained a lightsaber after the Gathering, like everyone else, and she wore it proudly on her belt. Its design was slightly different compared with others, instead of a straight hilt; it curved slightly in the middle to accommodate a better grip than a normal blade which helped her with her preferred style of form II, Makashi, its smooth exterior made from an obsidian that was darker than a midnight sky on the darkest of planets. 'So what have you done this time Anakin?'

Anakin sighed slightly in annoyance, maybe he did have to deal with some sly comments now and again. 'Why do you assume that I have done something? I haven't done anything wrong.'

'So it wasn't you who took so many of the spare parts from Jedi Starfighters and then add them to yours and your master own ship to improve it?'

Anakin went silent for a moment. 'That happened once ok. I get my parts normally now.'

'Wasn't that because of the two months you spent cleaning the temple afterwards?' Obi-Wan said with a slight smile.

Anakin looked over at Obi-Wan with a slight annoyed expression. 'I thought Jedi didn't take sides master Kenobi.'

'Well considering that Liza is my Padawan it does seem prudent that I do so.' He replied simply. Anakin remembered when Liza became his master's former apprentice's padawan. It had only been a month or two after the gathering when Obi-Wan had approach the young Jedi and offered to take her under his wing, training her and taking her out on missions when they needed to. It was because of this and the relationship that Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan had that lead them to join on missions together with their apprentices meaning that Anakin and Liza meet somewhat regularly. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for Frey when he became the Padawan of Lania Morrow. It wasn't like they don't meet at all; on the contrary, he and Frey met up as much as they could when they were both on Coruscant in the form of training together or simply talking about recent missions that they have done with their respected masters. They have, on some rare occasions, been on missions together before where they along with their masters have completed missions with very little difficulty and in a sort amount of time, something Anakin had always said that it was due to the pair of them working together.

'Now, enough wasting time.' Obi-Wan said which moved Anakin's focus from the past and to the present. 'We have left the council waiting long enough.'

'Yes master.' Liza replied respectfully as she followed her master into the waiting elevator along with Anakin and Qui-Gon, where the metal doors closed in front of them with a soft click. The ride up was spent mostly in silence as the view of the outside, filled as always with all sorts of speeders zooming along air lanes was seen through the glass walls of the elevator. It didn't take long until the elevator stopped at the top of the tower softy where the doors opened showing the occupants the large doors at the end of the corridor that was the entrance to the awaiting council members. They didn't have to wait long before the doors opened and they were granted entry to see all the council seated in the round room, leaving the centre free for them to stand in front of the council. They all took their place in the middle of the room, the sunlight lighting their face from the sun that could be seen through the large window walls of the room, but even at this height Anakin could still see vehicles flying towards their destination.

'Masters.' Qui-Gon said respectfully as he bowed, an action that the others followed. 'You summoned us?'

'Yes we did.' Mace Windu replied in a voice that, to Anakin, seemed that he was always slightly angry at something, but he knew that he could get more so, all he had to do was think about all the times that his master went to the council to change the rule about emotional connection. 'we have received a transmission that we want you to see.' After he had said that, he proceeded to hit a button that was on the arm of his chair and a hologram of a man appeared before them. From what Anakin could see, he was obviously an important political figure or of someone of great wealth judging by his clothes and cloak, which were made from a high quality material. But he must have also been a Jedi since he could clearly see a curved lightsaber attached firmly to his belt, but that didn't make any sense to Anakin since he knew that no Jedi were supposed to have any titles or worldly processions, so what made him different? His hair was mostly snow white with the exception of a few grey hairs that lined them, his aged dark brown eyes showed that he held a great amount of experience but they also showed concern. The hologram didn't provide his surroundings, but the message, as soon as it had started, rang out an alarm that was clearly part of a ships warning system which made the man look to his right before looking back towards them and spoke.

'Greetings Jedi masters of the high council.' He spoke in a deep, rich voice. 'This is Count Dooku of Serenno and I am in need of assistance. I am on my Providence carrier returning to Serenno from a political meeting and my ship is currently being attacked by an unknown ship and it seems to be both determined to stop me and possess the necessary firepower to do so.' As he said this, sparks sprung from somewhere to his side, causing him to shield his eyes with his raised arm. Dooku looked back at them, or the recording device from his perspective, taking a moment before speaking again. 'I know that I have had... my own opinions before I left the order, but Serenno is too far away to send reinforcements in time and Coruscant is much closer to my position.'

'Sir!' another voice shot out from somewhere behind the Count. 'They are coming around for another attack!'

'Hurry.' Dooku continued after his latest update of his situation. 'Time is of the essence.'

The holographic message blinked out of existence and the room was silent for a moment. Anakin looked towards his master to see his reaction, if any other person had looked at his master at that point, they would have only seen a neutral face, never showing any emotions, keeping his features completely stoic. But for Anakin, he could see the subtle little clues that his master made. The slight frown with his eyebrows, the more focused look in his eyes, the slight curve of his mouth, they all pointed towards one thing, concern.

'Did he send anything else with the transmission?' Qui-Gon said after a little while.

'Besides his ships coordinates,' Plo Koon responded, his muffled voice the first to be heard before the other masters. 'next to nothing. We don't know who is attacking Dooku, their numbers, the type of ship they are using or their weapons.'

'In other words this is a 'going in blind' type of mission.' Eeth Koth said, summing up the situation in simplicity.

'Like this I do not.' The old, wise master Yoda said with a frown. 'Too much unknown there is. But leave him in need we cannot.'

'So how do you propose we enter his ship then?' Obi-Wan asked, finally joining the conversation. 'If we get close to Dooku's ship, then whoever is attacking him can easily turn their attention towards us and take out our ship before we even had the chance to help.'

'That is precisely the reason why we are taking one of the Republic's ships instead of our own.' Windu answered Obi-Wan's question in his always serious voice. 'Granted, our own ships are more manoeuvrable and faster, but theirs are better armed and fortified so that should give you an edge against them. You will also be going with a security detail that will give some extra firepower if needed.'

Qui-Gon took a moment, thinking over the information that was given to him and who it was that needed help, before answering. 'Ok, we will ready ourselves and leave immediately; we have no idea of what has happened since that message has been sent.'

Mace nodded his head in agreement. 'I will inform the security team to expect you all. May the force be with you.'

'May it be with you all as well.' Qui-Gon said before he turned around and started walking out of the room which caused Anakin, Liza and Obi-Wan to walk quickly after him.

Once they had all entered the elevator, Anakin asked the question that had risen as soon as the message had played. 'Master, who was that?'

But before Qui-Gon spoke, another voice belonging to Liza cut in with annoyance. 'Anakin, how could you not know? Seriously it's like you don't pay attention unless it's physical training. That was Count Dooku of Serenno, a former Jedi master. He was one of the orders finest swordsman, only being match by the likes of master Yoda and Windu.'

'Thanks, but I wasn't asking you was I?' Anakin responded

'Well you wouldn't need to ask if you actually listen and read some of the Jedi history in the archives when you were supposed to.'

'You two, stop it.' Obi-Wan said in a stern voice. 'Honestly, I have never heard two beings argue like you two.'

'What? No we don't.' Anakin said defensively.

'Yes you do.' Qui-Gon said firmly. 'But in answer to your question Anakin, what Liza said is true. Dooku was a former member of the Jedi order and, incidentally, he was my master when I was a Padawan. Were it not for him then I don't think that I would have the same views or be the Jedi that I am today.' As he finished, the elevators door opened and they all walked out and made their way to their personal quarters to ready themselves for the mission. Both masters and their apprentices were reasonably close to one another so once they had acquired the needed things from their rooms, they met back up and made their way towards the hanger where the ship would be waiting to take them to Dooku's location, or where his ships last known co-ordinates were.

As they made their way through the temples corridors, sometimes catching the sounds of younglings training with instructors, Anakin asked a question that had started to occupy his mind while he thought about the mission that they were about to take. 'Master, why did Dooku leave the Jedi order? Honestly I didn't think that that could happen with a Jedi.'

Qui-Gon looked at his apprentice before taking a moment to think of how to reply to the question. 'Anakin, if I did know why he decided to leave the order then I would tell you but as it stands, I honestly have no idea why he did. After I had gained my Knighthood we had next to none communications with each other. He would either be on a mission or training privately by himself while I was at the temple after missions. It could have been due to his views on the Jedi order and the Republic but that would be speculation based on next to nothing facts.'

Anakin frowned slightly at his master's response. 'What did he think about the order and the Republic before he left? I mean he did say something about it during his transmission but were they really that bad?'

Before his master replied, Anakin could see from the corner of his eye that Liza and Obi-Wan were leaning ever so slightly towards them, clearly just as interested in the questions response as he was. 'Well, his views on them were and are still considered... controversial. He believed that the Republic had become corrupt while the Jedi order became lax and arrogant because of how things have been peaceful for hundreds of years. While I cannot agree wholeheartedly with his views, I can see why he saw things that way. There are people out there who's only goal in live is to gain as much power as possible for their own selfish gains, like the Sith or greedy politicians, and as much as people deny it they do still happen. And he was not completely wrong when he said that the Jedi have become laxed and have become so used to how things were that they are not used to change and there by reject it. You saw yourself how the council reacted to the reappearance of the Sith, they thought it was impossible because they would have sensed it otherwise, but they still returned without raising a single eyebrow.'

Upon hearing this, Anakin started to think his master's words over and how they rang out a certain truth. It was true that people can be corrupt, he need only remember his home world and how it was almost singlehandedly ran by Jabba the Hut, a crime lord who showed the deaths of his enemies as entertainment to his guests in his palace, his power on Tatooine only being match by his anger. Was it possible for the republic to have the same sort of person, hidden within its glorified clothing and makeup? Or even the Jedi order?

'But,' His masters voice said, cutting through Anakin's thoughts like his own blade. 'While there are shadows hiding within this universe, there are those who stand against them, those who do whatever they can to make it a better place for those around them, people who battle the darkness so that others may enjoy the light. It can even be a simple being who does a common kindness for a friend. As long as there are those sort of beings in the universe and they choose to do something, then it can change and become better.'

Anakin smiled lightly. Leave it to his master to turn this into a lecture but that was one of the things that Anakin admired about his master. He didn't try to block out the negatives, he accepted them and saw the good that the bad hides and brings it forth, he knew that things can be bad but he always tries to change it like with the Jedi rule against forming attachments, an argument that he still tries to win each day. He doesn't try to bottle up his emotions but acknowledge them so that when needed, he can control them better, and in Anakin's opinion, he can do it better than most.

 _If I can even come close to the sort of Jedi that he is,_ Anakin thought to himself, _then I must be doing something right._

It didn't take them long after that to reach the Republican ship on the landing zone outside, it being prepared for their inevitable mission by a small crew of 4 while a small group of 12 or so security member were inside the ship preparing equipment for their 'blind' mission. The ship that they were taking was an Amphibious Interstellar Assault Transport/infantry model, its wingspan of around 30 meters held two massive sunlight engines underneath each wing, it circular form almost blending in with the wing. It had a simple colour scheme of dirty reds and greens were minimalistic over its dirty white metal and from his view, Anakin could make out twin laser turrets above its curved cockpit, facing forward with its short barrels.

One of the crew members turned around from what they were doing and looked directly at them. Finally noticing that they were there, she quickly instructed one of the other crew members to finish off what she was doing, once that had been done she made her way towards them. As she got closer, Anakin started to make out more details about her, such as her blonde hair that was tucked under her Republican uniform hat but a few strands of it had spilled out, her dark grey eyes showed that she had faced conflict before but there was a certain kindness that was there. She looked to be around the same age as his master, late forties or early fifties. As for her clothing, she wore a common captain's uniform which Anakin remembers vaguely from his studies of the Republic's rules and regulations, though he wasn't paying the most amount of attention when receiving that lesson.

'Master Jinn, Knight Kenobi, Padawan's Skywalker and Rendix.' She said formally with a slight nod from her head. 'I am Fiona Polo and I shall be your captain and pilot for this rescue mission.'

'It's a pleasure to meet you captain.' Qui-Gon replied politely. 'I assume you know what sort of mission we are about to take and what it entails.'

She nodded. 'The Jedi council have informed. It's a rescue mission where a political figure has been attacked but we don't know with what sort of ship and by whom, so in other words, it's a 'blind' mission.'

'Unfortunately that is the case, even though I wish it wasn't.'

'Which is why we are taking my ship.' She said with a hint of pride in her voice as she gestured to the ship behind her. 'Lady and gentlemen, may I present to you the Echopoint 4. She is equipped with twin laser turrets, a rear laser turret, concussive missile launchers and a few other goodies to boot.'

Anakin whistled appreciatively. 'Nice. But can it get us there fast enough? I mean we have no idea what's happen over there while we received the message from Dooku.'

She turned towards Anakin with raised eyebrows, as if his question had slightly offended her. 'Don't worry about that Padawan Skywalker; with the class 1.5 hyperdrive engine on there we will get there quite quickly.'

'Sweet.' Anakin replied. 'You know, with a tweaks...'

'Anakin, we want to get there safely. Not blow up half way there.' Liza said with a sly smile.

'Hey.' Anakin responded, annoyed.

'Anakin.' Qui-Gon said firmly, which caused Anakin to stop before he could use a comeback against Liza. 'Now captain Polo, are we ready to go yet?'

'Momentarily. We just need to make a few more preparations.' She replied factually.

'Good' Qui-Gon responded. 'It's time to answer the counts call.'


	5. Chapter 5

**So as promised, a new chapter for this month and before the story continues, I just want to say thank you to everyone who is enjoying this story and decided to follow and favourite it.**

 **I mean as of writing this chapter, there are 61 followers, 22 who have favourite it and a total of 4,028 views which just surprises me every time I look at it.**

 **So again, thank you for doing that.**

 **And now our story begins a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...**

 **That it is somehow in the future as well.**

Chapter 5: The bounty hunters strike

Anakin paced around the crews lounge in the Echopoint 4. His anticipation for what was to come was itching at his skin, keeping him alert and on edge. When it came to the actual missions, he was always fine. He was never afraid of his opponent, he was never anxious when he was faced with something that seemed impossible, he had faced them before many times with his master, he never gave up when it seemed like the situation was hopeless. But there was one thing that he always hated doing. It was waiting for what was going to happen to happen. It was like waiting for a storm to hit when you know one is coming, your just sitting there prepared for it, imagining how it's going to be, and that just drove Anakin nuts. In his opinion, it was better for it to just happen so that it could be dealt with.

'If you keep doing that you'll make a groove in the floor.' Obi-Wan said, reminding Anakin that he was not completely alone in the room. But, besides from them, there was no one else in the room. His master was in the cockpit with Captain Polo and her crew while Liza was in the cargo hold checking the equipment with the security team.

'Well what can I say; I hate the calm before the storm.' Anakin replied.

Obi-Wan chuckled slightly at his response. 'Well, it seems that you still have..., what does Qui-Gon call it? Oh yes, the impatience of youth. You really do need to learn how to wait Anakin.'

Anakin rolled his eyes, slightly annoyed. Obi-Wan always had a tendency to try and sound like he was older and more in charge than he actually was. He was only 10 years older than he was and whenever he did say stuff like that, he always ended up sounding slightly snobby. Anakin ended up hearing that a lot when Obi-Wan helped train him when his master was occupied with something else. But he knew that deep down, he viewed him as an older brother, he always did try to help him when they were training or even now, even though he did sound slightly pretentious.

'Well what do you suggest then to pass the time then? I can't just sit around doing nothing.' Obi-Wan took a moment to think, wondering what could keep him focused long enough until they had arrived at their needed destination. He then turned his head towards one of the counter tops and smiled slightly, figuring out what the young padawan could do.

'How about,' he said as he got up and walked towards the counter and pick up one of the cups that occupied its space and held it in front of him to show Anakin. 'This?'

Anakin just stared between the cup and then at Obi-Wan with a raised eyebrow. 'You want me to hold on to a cup?'

'Well, not in the way you're thinking of.' He said with a sly smile. He then proceeded to use the force to lift the cup in the air, where it hanged for a few moments before, with a small gesture from Obi-Wan, it levitated towards the table where he was sitting moments ago and landed just as lightly as it has risen.

'Really?' Anakin asked, somewhat sceptical. 'Basic telekinesis training. I'm pretty sure that I can do that right.'

'Well then it will be no problem for you then will it?' Obi-Wan responded with a slight smug smile on his lightly bearded face.

Anakin, with an annoyed roll of his eyes, reluctantly raised his arm towards the small cup on the table. When it came to Obi-Wan and training, it was better to just follow whatever instructions he has made until he told you what the point of it was, it was honestly one of the many things that taught Anakin how to fight properly. He didn't really need to think when it came to putting up his guard because Obi-Wan has already drilled it in to him so much when they train together, although Anakin mostly went with offensive methods of attack than defensive methods. Plus, when it came to moments like this, Anakin always felt a spark of sibling rivalry within him, pushing him to try and one up the young Jedi knight.

He barely had to think about the force to let it flow through him and towards the cup and grasped it within its invisible hand and made it levitate into the air lazily, spinning slightly before the cup made its way back down towards the table and landed softly.

Obi-wan took a moment to look at the cup, before shaking his head from side to side. 'Wrong. Do it again.'

'What?' He said, completely confused. 'But I moved it. That's the entire point of it. How can that be wrong?'

Obi-Wan replied with a small smile. 'Just because you have moved it doesn't mean that you have done it correctly. Now, do it again.'

Anakin would have argued more, saying that he had done it right the first time, maybe doing it again just to show him that it he is doing it the way that it's meant to be done, but he didn't get that chance as Captain Polo's voice rang out on the inter com links throughout the ship. 'Everyone, get off your asses and start getting ready for dropping off. We are 5 minutes away from existing from hyper space and arriving at the Count's ship. As for the Jedi, please make your way to the cockpit now. Master Qui-Gon has said you were good pilots so we may need your help.'

The com link turned off with a slight hiss of static. 'Looks like we're about to hit the storm now Anakin.' Obi-Wan said, somewhat sarcastically.

'Existing hyper space in 15 seconds.' Captain Polo said as she made the preparations to exit out of hyper space. Anakin was nearby one of the consoles in the cockpit, providing his expertise when he needed too and in 15 seconds, he would probably have to become even more involved when the fighting started. The rest of them were there too, his master, Obi-Wan and Liza stood close to the crew, ready for action should the need arise. The rest of the crew had seemed somewhat reluctant to have the young 15 year old boy at the controls of a ship that was about to enter a battle, but after Qui-Gon had told them that his skills as a pilots were one of the best that he has ever seen, that seemed to erased some of their worries but not all of them.

'5 seconds. Get ready.' Polo informed them, adding to the already heavy tension of the room. Soon enough, the warped lights of hyperspace fell away to reveal..., nothing. Well, there wasn't nothing there, Count Dooku's ship was floating in the vast darkness of space, showing clearly that it had take quite some damage along its hull and especially its thrusters, so it was just sitting there. Unable to move away from any form of attackers.

But the question was, why wasn't it being attack?

Apart from their ship and Dooku's, there was nothing else there. No ships or fighters going guns a blazing, no large vessel that was releasing havoc upon the defenceless ship. It was just nothing.

'Well,' Obi-Wan spoke, breaking the silence, 'that's anti-climatic.'

That was understating it in Anakin's opinion. In his own minds eye, he had built up a picture of what he would be expecting. He had pictured of two ships locked in mortal combat, each side trying to stop on another with whatever they had available to them. He had imagined them entering into a fry where they would have to skilfully pilot their ship so that they could stop the enemy ships and protect the former Jedi's vessel. But the reality of, well, reality destroyed that picture, it sucked the all the blasts, missiles and ships into the dark silence of space from which they could never escape.

'I don't like this.' The captain stated cautiously. 'If whoever had wanted to attack Dooku, to kill me or capture him, why would they just leave it floating there? They must have known that they released a distress beacon.'

Qui-Gon stared out towards the ship with a frown, a look that Anakin knew that he was trying to dismantle the situation, trying to find out what had happened before moving forward. 'I don't know captain, but we can't leave them there. We have to help them. Try and reach them over their comms, maybe they'll be able to get us aboard. But tread carefully, it maybe a trap.'

Captain Polo gave a grim smile. 'You don't say.' If she was with any other Jedi, she would have remained formal and just have given a short 'Yes sir.' But she wasn't, and she pick up rather quickly that she could be herself a little more around the Jedi, who were more or less constantly poking fun at each other, and form the look at it, she was enjoying that slight bit of freedom for all it was worth.

She started to move the Echopoint 4 closer to the damaged ship as she tried to raise a communication link with them. 'Hello, this is captain Fiona Polo of the Galactic Republic aboard the ship Echopoint 4 responding to your distress call. Is anyone receiving this?'

The comm link was silent for long moments; the only sound was the slight hiss of static filling the soundless room, until a stern voice replied. 'Copy Echopoint 4, we hear you and we could really use your help right now.'

Captain Polo with a calm and business type voice, something that told Anakin that this wasn't the first time that she has dealt with this situation, replied. 'What is your status? Has anyone onboard been seriously injured? Where are the attackers?'

'Our ship is damaged but not to any life threatening degree, the engines have been damaged so we can't more a damn inch. No one's been seriously injured but there were a few close calls that I wished weren't so damn close and as for the guys who did this to us, we have no idea where they went. They started their attack when we left hyperspace to re-calculate to the next point but after about 10 minutes they just disappeared from our scanners.'

This made Anakin frown in confusion. It made no sense. Why would you attack a ship that contains a political figure only to leave it alone before you have actually taken what they wanted, either something valuable or the Count's life. Why prolong something that could easily be done in a matter of minutes? Was it supposed to prove something? Or was it like a warning shot that some beings sent to others that told them to stop whatever it was that was threatening them in the first place?

He looked over towards his master and he had a similar expression on his face. When he first heard the news that no one had been seriously hurt he seemed to have released some amount of tension or worry from his body and mind, but then they became infected with suspicion just like everyone else in the room.

Captain Polo didn't miss a beat. 'Are you still able to open your cargo bay doors to let us in or any airlocks?'

The operator of the comm link gave a humourless laugh. 'Captain that's one of the things that has survived the attack. We can open it but you'll have to be on guard as we do it, we don't know if they have some sort of camouflage tech on board or not so they could still be hanging around somewhere.'

'Understood. We'll keep our eyes peeled while you open the door.' She replied while she started to pilot the Echopoint 4 towards the back of the ship where the cargo bay doors were located, all the while the rest of the crew, along with Anakin and everyone else, started to prep their ship for any incoming attacks. Although everything was in place, all the weapons were active and the missiles were in their tubes ready to be fired, nothing happen. The ride over to the bay doors were uneventful, furthering shattering his mental images of a space battle.

But there was something that didn't just feel right for Anakin. Something that lurked in both the pit of his stomach and scratching at the back of his mind. Why leave? That question just kept being asked in his mind and it gave him an uneasy feeling, like you were looking at a picture and you knew something was wrong about it but you can't quite place your finger on it.

Dooku's cargo bay doors opened without too much of a problem, they flew their ship into it and landed without a problem. There was a small crew in the cargo bay along with some security. Anakin guessed that they were sent just in case something would go wrong, but nothing did. When they landed they all left the Echopoint 4, except Captain Polo's crew and the security team who were preparing everything to be moved into Dooku's ship.

So there they were, walking across the cargo bay floor, with its grey metal floor and some walkways that hung in the air, towards a set of door which opened to reveal the Count himself being escorted by his body guards walking towards them. Anakin looked over at his master and saw the little hints that he had relaxed, from what Anakin heard him say about his old master, he understood that Dooku meant a lot to Qui-Gon.

Then it happened. Anakin felt it. His master felt it. Obi-wan and Liza felt it. And from the looks of it, Dooku had felt it. They had all felt the tug of the Force, warning them that something was about to happen.

Qui-Gon was the first to react. 'Everyone hit the deck!' Soon enough, a missile appeared from the corner of Anakin's eye, from one of the doors that led on to one of the walkways, and flew straight towards the Echopoint 4. It made contact with the ship's hull and exploded into a ball of uncontrollable fire, killing everyone inside of it and close to it.

Then everything burst into chaos.


	6. Chapter 6

**Ok so sorry about the somewhat late update but recently I have had a lot of work concerning university live so I have had little to work on this.**

 **I know me at university? Shocking I tell you. Shocking!**

 **Also sorry about the length of this story but I hate keeping you guys waiting. One last thing before the story and that's a massive thank you to everyone enjoying this story and following it. It's quite incredible that so many people like this so I hope I can keep writing things that you guys like.**

 **So without further ado, this story takes place a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...**

 **Where the majority of main characters are human for some reason.**

Chapter 6: The flames of the Echopoint 4

The force of the explosion pushed at Anakin, causing him to fall slightly even at the distance he was away from it. He could feel the heat of it brush his skin, smell its acidic smoke the wreckage made mix with the undeniable scent of burnt flesh and hair. He saw the hungry orange and gold flames consume the disaster in what seemed to be an uncontrollable amount of gusto.

He also saw, when he turned his head to check if anyone was hurt, Fiona's face contorted in heart breaking horror; she screamed a throat destroying 'Noooooooo!'

What she did next surprised Anakin and he was pretty sure that she surprised everyone else around her. It wasn't how her face slowly turned from sorrow to anger with tears causing her eyes to shine slightly. It wasn't how her hands shaked with her anger. It was how fast that she was able to reach for her blaster that she had on her left hip with her hand, stood up and shot at the doorway where the missile had come from, the precision of the action was uncanny with no sign of hesitation or uncertainty. The sort of skill that could only be achieved through a great amount experience.

If Anakin had time to think, he would have thought about how Captain Polo was so clearly adept at this, seeing how she was only a pilot in a time of peace, but the shot that she fired struck the one that had fired the missile at her ship and killed her crew in the chest causing him to fall over the railing of the walkway. He landed on the cargo bay floor with a smack. If he wasn't dead before the fall, he was most certainly was now. The group that was with the now dead shooter didn't waste any time, their transition from standing still to blasters blazing was like a drop of a hat and their weapons started firing to cover themselves while they edged to the open doorway behind them.

As soon as they started firing Anakin, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Liza and the Count leapt into action deflecting the deadly shots into harmless air. Anakin made a silent thank you towards Obi-Wan for teaching him so thoroughly on Soresu. It was true that Qui-Gon was already training him in all forms of lightsaber combat so that he was well prepared in a fight against anyone, but on the days when Obi-Wan was free from a mission with Liza, the he would tutor them both in the form quite strictly. At the time Anakin always thought that the best defence was the best offensive, to overpower your opponent which was why he preferred Form V Djem So with its strong strikes. But he would have to remember that in such an occasion as this, he's preferred form was unsuited for this kind of defence.

But that didn't stop him from trying. With sudden vigour, he ran at the gang of attackers with the aid of Force speed, evading and dodging the blast in such grace that it look like it belonged to someone who had far greater experience than this young Padawan could possibly had. He had crossed the distance between himself and the mercenaries in mere moments where afterwards he leapt up at the walkway where they were standing and hiding with ease. When he landed, he would easily face the attackers with such speed and strength that they would be captured before they could have fired a single shot. Once they were captured, they would face the crimes of attacking the Counts ship and destroying the Echopoint 4 while killing its crew, a crew that from the looks of it, were very close to Captain Polo.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen. It may have happened if Anakin had heard his master Qui-Gon calling out to him, warning him to stop, but he didn't. Just like how he didn't realise that the Force was warning him that something was up there on the walkway other than the attackers. When Anakin did land on the walkway, a concussion grenade was triggered when it sensed that someone was there, where it proceeded to detonate. If this was the physical kind of concussion grenade, then Anakin would have died, but this grenade was sonic, where it merely stunned Anakin with a sonic wave that caused Anakin's head to spin in pain. So much so that he couldn't stop himself from falling over the side railings and began to fall towards the grey metal floor of the cargo bay.

If his fall continued then Anakin would have joined a similar fate as the other attacker that Captain Polo had shot, falling and breaking almost everyone of his bones, but just at the last second a blur of motion came into his field of vision and grabbed him before he could hit the floor and pulled him under the walkway, providing some safety. Once Anakin was back on his feet, slightly unsteady but still standing upright, he didn't need to look to know who saved him.

'Anakin, how many times do I have to tell you? Look before you leap, think before you act.' Qui-Gon said in a tone of voice that told Anakin that this was his master talking to him.

'Yeah I know, but we can't let them get away.' Anakin replied, somewhat hotly.

'Unfortunately, they already have.' His master replied.

'What!' Anakin replied in complete shock. 'How?!'

'Well, after you decided to run off and fall over the rails, our little gang of crooks ran off after they had thrown some more concussion grenades at everyone. No one was hurt, only some disorientation. They must have had a cloaking device onboard their ship so that when they finished their attack, they could disappear and gain access to Dooku's systems and entered. And it's not like they can't hide. They have clearly shown that they can since no one know that they were here, this ship is rather large so it can be done if you know what you're doing. Dooku has sent some men after them but I doubt that they will show themselves again unless they wanted to'

'Damn it.' Anakin said in nothing but extreme annoyance. He hated the fact that they had gotten away from them, after they had attacked and killed so many people. The Echopoint 4's crew and the security detail that had come along with them, all good people. And what did Anakin do? Nothing. He had done nothing. If he was supposed to be the chosen one, then he should have been able to have stopped the attack from happening and saved them.

'Anakin stop.' Qui-Gon said calmly. 'I know what you're thinking; you've done it enough times already. You can't hold yourself responsible for every bad thing that happens around you. If you do, then you would constantly blame yourself when there is no need to blame. No one knew they were there until it was too late, I didn't know they were there, neither did Obi-Wan, Liza or Dooku knew that they were there. If any of us had known then we would have stopped them.'

Qui-Gon placed a hand on his students shoulder. 'You can't think constantly think about past mistakes Anakin, if you do then you will never be able to live. Making mistakes happens. But it's what you do after that counts, you can chose to hold onto them for the rest of your life and let it define you, or you learn from it and keep living your live properly.'

Anakin took a moment to look at his master before sighing. 'I know master. But saying it doesn't make it easier.' At that moment, Anakin looked toward the remains of the ruined Echopoint 4; a team of Count Dooku's men were already battling the flames with some success. His face immediately feel into bitter sadness and shame towards the remains as he realised the extend of how many people have died in the attackers short appearance. 'How is Captain Polo?' he asked with concern.

His master turned at looked at the woman in question, who was already talking to one of the Count's men in heated tones, with the same concern that Anakin had, maybe even a little more in his opinion. 'Understandably anger. From what she said about her crew and how she spoke to them when we travelled here, she was close to them all, like family I guess.'

'But,' Qui-Gon continued unwillingly. 'we can't focus on that right now. Right now we need to know who they are and why they are here. Join up with everyone else while I see if I can get anything useful from our intruder here.' He gesture towards the dead body of the attacker resting on the metal floor, the slight smell of burnt flesh from a blaster still noticeable.

'Yes master.' Anakin replied and head of towards his friends to figure out what just happened and how they can stop it before it could happen again.


	7. Chapter 7

**Sorry for the late update but it's that time of year when you go home, settle down and receive lots of presents, which is very important. But enough joking.**

 **Now there is something I want to say before this story begins and that is I have been thinking about writing a Naruto fan fiction where in the story, he has gained the Rinnegan early on in the story. Just wondering what you guys thought about it and if you wish to voice any ideas, then I will gladly listen to them.**

 **Now without any further ado, time for a story that happen a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...**

 **That somehow has a race of alien teddy bears that can defeat storm troopers...**

Chapter 7: A Count's lesson

Anakin blazed through a series of attacks with power and speed. If anyone was in the way of his blade then they would have been sliced into a variety of pieces, but there was nothing but empty air in front of him in the small room provided in Dooku's personal quarters on his ship. The quarters were large and lavish with all the signs that greatly spoke of its rich origins befitting a Count of a planet, with extra rooms from beds to a training room for any guests that the Count would bring along with his travels.

But the most important feature of the quarters was that it was the safest place on the ship. And they needed that right now. They needed somewhere that the mercenaries wouldn't be able to touch them and Anakin was in one of those rooms hoping that the physical exercise that he was putting himself through would help him to clear his mind of what's happened. After regrouping with the rest of his friends including Dooku and some of his guard, they ran over what had just happened, most of Dooku's guards were, expectedly, on high alert and standing a little closer to their Count. Fiona had also joined them with nothing but an angry, grim expression.

Dooku had told them that he had sent some of his guards after them, promising that they would find the intruders that had caused the atrocities they had witnessed. Captain Polo had heatedly argued with him, doubting his men's skill and was practically ordering him to search large areas of the ship where they could hide; there were many places that fitted that description. But she didn't stop there, she had then started to make guesses on where they were probably hiding on the ship, areas of the ship that were the least guarded or had so many objects occupying the area that they could easily hide whenever it was needed.

Anakin was sure that it wasn't just him that had noticed it, but from the way that she was speaking about it, it sounded like she had firsthand knowledge about it. Firsthand knowledge about how to infiltrate a ship and disappear afterwards until you needed to strike and accomplish whatever mission that you had. It could have been up to her training as a pilot for the Republic but that didn't add up either, the majority of the time republican pilots didn't end up doing anything remotely combat based, sure there were escort missions and a few skirmishes here and there but nothing that required that sort of knowledge that she apparently knew.

Anakin had, after they had discussed the situation and made their way to Dooku's quarters, told his master about it, informing him that he suspected that their captain seemed to have had experience in these exploits. His master had simply replied by saying that having suspicion was fine, but you need to be sure that you have seen the suspicion with a clear mind and perspective, and then gather the needed evidence to convince others.

But that didn't stop Anakin from thinking that she had something up her sleeve. This didn't interrupt the group of Jedi and pilot from discussing what had happened. It had gained direction when Qui-Gon returned to the group with his findings on the body of the dead attacker, from it he had received a small datapad that, when opened, revealed details on a target that the mercenaries were obviously after and no one was truly surprise to find out that the target was Dooku himself. It all made sense, seeing as he was the only one on the ship that was of major importance, but the thing that had surprised them was that the datapad had also showed them that the persons that were responsible for placing the hit on Dooku were the families on Serenno that helped govern the planet.

Which led to the question of why the families of Serenno wanted their Count dead? When the question was asked, Dooku simply made a hard look of thought before telling them that he would have to think on the matter before he made any claims that could lead to problems back on Serenno if he confronted them but it turned out that they had nothing to do with it. After all, it was relatively easy to falsify evidence so that the true enemy can remain hidden until it's too late he mentioned.

It appeared that the attackers were paid handsomely by the families to take the Count out, evident by some of the weapons that they had used on their attack on both ships and crew members. And after all this was found out, Dooku's guards proposed that the Count should remain in his sizely and secured quarters and here they were, Obi-Wan speaking to Dooku's captain of security in their security room while Qui-Gon and captain Polo were out with some of the security teams searching for the intruders.

And where did this leave Anakin and Lisa you may ask? Well it left them inside the quarters with the Count, who had argued quite sternly with Anakin's master about how he won't hideaway like a rat in his own ship but had been managed to stay thanks to Qui-Gon's calm words, acting as his added bodyguards. So as the new bodyguards, Liza was standing at the consoles in the quarters looking through the different security feeds and trying to see if there was anything that would indicate the positions of the mercenaries while Anakin was training to try and burn off some of his frustrations in some mind numbing exercise.

With an upwards slash he saw the missile connect with the Echopoint 4 and beginning its demise into an inferno along with its crew. With an impatient thrust forward he saw himself moving towards the butchers who had killed the entire crew without a thought like it didn't matter, that it didn't matter that they had killed innocent people. With a finishing spin, going low to attack where his opponent's legs would have been, he thought back to how he had fallen so easily because he didn't see the trap that should have been obvious to see.

Breathing heavily and with frustration he sat on the floor while he de-activated his lightsaber as he did so and ran his free hand through his hair. _Well that didn't clear my head. If anything it just made it worse._ He thought to himself annoyingly.

No matter what he did to try and distract himself from the event, it always seemed to find a way to hook into his mind and remind him of how he failed. He remembered his masters words clearly, how he tried to help him to stop beating himself up about something that he didn't know was going to happen, but he couldn't help himself. He still thought that if he was stronger then that, he would have been able to have stopped them before they could have had a chance at hurting anyone.

 _'You can choose to hold onto them for the rest of your life and let it define you, or you learn from it and live your life properly.'_ His master's words spoke inside of his head with that soothing quality that only he seemed to be able to produce.

Anakin sighed. He was right of course, although, it didn't surprise him that his master was right. Again. No matter the situation, if it was terrible or seemed to Anakin that everything was fine, Qui-Gon would find the right thing to say or impart some Jedi wisdom to not only help him become a better Jedi, but to be a better person. Even when Anakin wasn't even listening to the point where the majority of other Jedi masters patience was pushed passed their limits; Qui-Gon would still be there, still taking his time with him when he needed to.

So with that in mind, Anakin decided to do just as his master had told him to do, be better for next time. But for the time being, he wanted to take his mind off of what happen in the cargo bay and physical training wasn't having its normal affect for him today, so he sat there for a moment or two to think about what he could do to instead.

It didn't take long before a look of remembrance took hold of his features as he looked to his de-active lightsaber. It only being a little bit bigger than a cup...

Anakin lightly closed his eyes and concentrated on his weapon with the force flowing through him. The weapon was soon out of his hand and levitated in the air. So far, Anakin couldn't see what he was doing wrong that Obi-Wan, who he considered a brother, had pointed out. The object that he wanted to hold with the force was there, floating in the air in front of him and compared to his very first feat with this ability with master Yoda watching, it was nothing. A common part trick that you could have seen a thousand times if you took even a step in the temple.

'Hello young Skywalker.' A voice resonated from behind Anakin, which caused the young padawan to lose his concentration that caused his weapon to clatter on the ground at the intrusion and turned to see no other than the Count. 'What are you doing in here?'

Anakin took to his feet almost immediately. 'C-Count Dooku! I umm..., didn't realise that you wanted to use this room.'

'Please there is no need for formalities here.' He said as he waved the title away. 'You may simply call me Dooku, we are somewhat related after all since my old padawan is currently your master. But that doesn't answer my previous question. What were you doing just now?'

'Oh well I ahhh...,' Anakin started ask he bent down to pick up his fallen weapon. 'I was just doing something that Obi-Wan suggested to pass the time but he said that I was doing it wrong though I have no idea why.'

'Mmmm.' Dooku thought momentarily while lightly stroking his bread, the action reminding Anakin of his own master Qui-Gon. 'Perhaps I can help you. I was a master Jedi after all.'

Anakin simply nodded before he again started to levitate his lightsaber in front of him, giving Dooku a clear view of what he was doing. Dooku took a moment to observe with both his eyes and with his senses through the Force, as Anakin had felt his tendrils softly wrap around his weapon, before a knowing look over came his features. 'Ahh, I know what Obi-Wan means. You are creating the desired effect, but your method of doing so if ineffective.'

'What do you mean?' Anakin asked curiously.

'Well the best explanation I can give would be how Obi-Wan use's the Force.' Dooku explain, taking on a lecturing tone that again reminded Anakin of his master. 'He has a rather weak connection to the force so when he uses his abilities he makes sure that he focuses what connection he has to the Force to what he wants to do, for instants, levitating a lightsaber. This way he makes sure that everything he has is being focused into that single action without any of his energy being wasted. With you, you are lifting the weapon but doing so without properly concentrating your large amounts of energy into the action. In this way, anyone who has a better control over their own connection to the Force can defeat you because of your unutilised potential.'

'I guess that makes sense.' Anakin replied after he thought it over. 'But that last one seems a bit of a stretch.'

'Is that so?' Dooku asked sceptically as he reached to his belt and reached for his curved lightsaber and activated it, sending a blue hue to light the room slightly. 'Would you care to test that theory?'

Anakin simply smiled slightly and activated his own lightsaber in response. 'Ready when you are Dooku.'

If he was going to say something in return, Anakin didn't give him a chance as he immediately began his attack against the once Jedi master, using wide powerful swipes to see how the older man would react. To say that Anakin was surprised when the count effortlessly blocked each of his attacks and immediately began to push Anakin back with grace would have been a slight understatement. He remembered how Liza said that Dooku was a master swordsman, able to face Yoda and Windu on level ground, and within the first few seconds of the sparring match, Dooku clearly lived up to the expectation.

Each of his moves flowed into the next with such unnatural grace and fluidity that to Anakin, it wasn't like he was fighting at all, but rather he was dancing. But he had seen these sorts of things before, in thanks to both his training in every lightsaber form from his master and his sparring matches with Liza since it was her preferred form. But while Anakin did know about the form, his knowledge was a general understanding at best while his opponent had clearly more knowledge and experience on the form.

 _That's not going to stop me from winning._ Anakin thought confidently.

He immediately started to push back with his preferred form, Djem So, using powerful swings to push he opponent back and trying to hack away at his defences until they broke so that he could disarm him and win the match. He brought great slashes upon his opponent, but again, he used that grace of his to block his attacks as they came, flowing flawlessly from one defence to the next.

Before Anakin could react to this, Dooku managed to catch his saber with his own, spinning around it until he pushed it to the side, away from his body then brought his blade rushing towards his out stretched hand until it stopped barely millimetres away from the cloth that hung from his arm. Anakin became a statue, completely aware of the fact that, if this was a real battle, the blue lightsaber that was under his forearm right now would have sliced through it below his elbow, leaving him in searing pain and a stump.

'Good.' Dooku said calmly, he didn't even sound out of breath. 'Very good young Skywalker. In time, you would make a valiant opponent on a battlefield.' With that said he placed his blade on his belt and began to walk out of the room, leaving the padawan with his last words to think about. 'Oh, and take some advice from someone who is no longer bound to the laws of a Jedi. There is great power in your emotions young Skywalker, you just need to know how to use it.'

As the door closed shut with its mechanical buzz, Anakin thought over the Count's words. _Is there such power in my emotions? I mean, I know that the masters always say that if we used our emotions in the Force, we would become tempted by the dark side, but is that right? My master has always said that we shouldn't shy away from our feelings but rather understand them and become better for it, so does that involve using them as well?_

After some thought Anakin decided that for now, he would wait until after the mission at hand before asking his master what he thought on the matter. It would be the sensible move considering how important this was for not only Serenno but for the Republic as well. So for now, he would concentrate on his duties as a bodyguard and worry about his thoughts later. With that decided, he walked to the door to exit the room, but as he did so, there was something that was scratching the back of his mind. He couldn't put his finger on what it was, but there was something that seemed..., familiar about the Count. He put it down as the similarities that he shared with his own master, yet that didn't seem to fit either. What was it?

Dooku made his way to his private quarters, greeting the other padawan as he made his way. He stepped into the room, which contained a large comfortable bed, a reasonable desk with some documents on them related to some affairs on Serenno or another, and as the door closed behind him, a smile played on his lips. Things were going according to plan. He was a little worried at the chance that his old apprentice would take the boy with him as he made his patrol around his ship to keep an eye on the young boy, but leaving him with the seemingly innocent Count fit perfectly with what he was tasked to do.

He walked over to his desk and took a seat, looking at the piles of paper work about him, the only down side about running a planet in Dooku's opinion, before he was greeted with a presence that he knew all too well. He had after all picked the man to be the template of a clone army after all.

'A commendable performance Jango. I didn't know acting was in your repertoire.' The Count said, barely looking up from the paper work in front of him.

The figure stepped forwards from the shadows of the room and shrugged. 'When you've do the job that I've been doing for as long as I've have you pick up a lot of tricks that you wouldn't have thought about.'

'I imagine so.' Dooku replied.

The figure, now known as Jango, looked at the Count, his expression hidden from the Sith lord in front of him by the helmet that was provided for him instead of his usual attire. 'I don't normally ask about why my clients hire me to do whatever they want me to do. As long as I get paid it's done, but I have to ask, why the charade? Wouldn't it have been easier to take them all down right there and then in their ship? I mean it would have been easy to manipulate them in a way that everyone else would have been on or near the ship and lead the boy away before it went sky high. Why go through all the trouble?'

'Simple.' Dooku replied. 'If we did do what you proposed, then yes, we would have killed them all and taken the boy away and create some story for the Jedi council of how our 'attackers' shot down their ship while we barely made it out alive, but there would be a problem. The boy would resent us for doing so. We could turn that to our advantage just like my master would want; turning the boy to the dark side but that would only cause problems later on since he would still hate us for killing his master and friends. But the way that we are doing it now, I am gaining the boys trust and thanks to that bonfire that you started, it has already given the boy a push to become stronger, allowing me the chance to tempt him with the dark side. Once that is done, it will be easier to control him once his master and friends are dead.'

Jango took a moment to think it over before giving a satisfied nod. 'Fair enough, but as long as I get paid I don't really care how we do it.'

'Good, now just make sure that you and your associates remain in the armour that we have given you and leave nothing behind that would lead back to you, we wouldn't want them to know about our project on Kamino now would we.'

'Of course.' Jango replied. 'I am a professional after all.'


	8. Chapter 8

**Ok so I know I have some explaining to do regarding my rather late, no stretch that, my _completely_ late update on my story. The thing that I can respond to that is with two reasons. One, I have recently had my uni exam for my first year so that took priority over my stories and two being that my laptop had desired to be a complete dick to me and stop working for me and go to my rival just to spite me.**

 **DAMN YOU JIMMY MY ETERNAL RIVAL! I WILL SHOW YOU THAT MY FLAMES OF YOUTH ARE BRIGTHER THAN YOURS!**

 **Ok so I'm obviously joking about the rival thing, but my laptop did stop working so as of the time of posting this, I am writing on my iPad for the time being.**

 **So with that out of the way, updates should be at a more regular times since summer is setting in with both of my stories. The pattern with these updates are going to be that a chapter will be posted on one story then it's going to switch to my other story an so on and so forth. If you haven't had a read of my other story yet then please have a little read through, if you like Naruto that is.**

 **Now on to the story, as always I don't own Star Wars at all, if I did then I would be stupidly rich and be able to do pretty much whatever I could want.**

 ** _A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..._**

 ** _were somehow hundreds of years old men can be more athletic then professionals in their prime..._**

Chapter 8: Advice from a master of loss

Qui-Gon was walking calmly along the corridors of Dooku's ship along with a darker looking Fiona after looking over another part of the ship that, like the other areas that they had searched for the mercenaries, remained fruitless. And, as it was after each empty search, Fiona's expression grew a little bit darker, her grip on her blaster grew that little bit tighter, all of which made the guards that they passed in the ship slightly more tensed.

When Qui-Gon had first made plans to help the rest of Dooku's guards to find the hired mercenaries, the most forethought that he had was to do all he could to help protect his old master for all that he had done for him back when he was a young padawan with so many challenges ahead of him. He had been his guide in both the ways of the Force and the ways of the galaxy, teaching him how important it was to still be part of the galaxy and don't just end up as another Jedi that would try and push his emotions away. And with all he had done for him, it was only right that he should try and repay that kindness and guidance with whatever help he could provide, that being protecting him while they tried to get him to Serenno.

Though there was a second thought just behind that one where it didn't concern his master at all, or Anakin who, ever since the incident that happened during the Gathering that he took part in, he had been somewhat more observant over Anakin just to make sure anything similar didn't happen again. The mere thought of Anakin being taken away by whoever had tried to take him filled him with dread, but this didn't cloud his judgement so that he would start taking completely unneeded options that would stunt his growth as a person and a Jedi, but he was more aware of when he was alone. But this wasn't a concern with how Anakin's skills were incredible for someone so young, yet he still had those flaws of youth, as well as being near Dooku that even with his age was a formidable opponent.

No, it wasn't those who he was concerned about, but it was rather the woman that was besides him. Her anger had been easy enough to see clearly on her face and in her posture, the feeling that he got from her through the Force agreed with this assessment even more so. This was, after all, to be expected when you lose someone important and from how she acted with her crew, they more than fit that description. So this anger and grief that she is feeling was natural, but what wasn't natural was to be completely consumed by those emotions until you become someone who you couldn't recognise anymore and Qui-Gon had the unfortunate experience of how that felt firsthand.

Deciding to try and help her the best way he can, he was about to speak to her when she brought up a communicator that was provided to them by Dooku's guards. "Team 1 to all teams, has the mercenaries been located yet?" She spoke with a barely contained anger spilling in her voice.

"Team 1 this is head leader back at control, there as been no sightings of them on any of the monitors and all other teams have reported back with a negative visual on any of the mercenaries seen at the docking bay." A voice replied over the speaker on the communicator with that slight hiss of static that always accompanies any transmission.

"WELL LOOK AGAIN!" Fiona snapped back in a frustrated tone.

There was a moment of silence from the communicator before a strict voice replied to her outburst. "We are well aware of how pressing this matter is Captain Polo and we are doing everything in our power to catch these low life's as quickly as possible to protect our Count. But as it stands, I am in command of this ship after the Count and his security, so do not tell me what I should and should not do _Captain._ " He somehow made the word captain sound as if it was a degrading term rather a military rank.

Qui-Gon saw her grit her teeth with a small growl in response but didn't say anything in response as the link was cut from the other end. The slight silence of the moment didn't last long however as Fiona threw the communicator against the wall with some force, her growl of frustration was easily hear in the corridor they were in, as well as her quick and heavynfootsteps as she began to move away from the discarded communicator.

Qui-Gon, as he reached down and pick up the discarded device that held a small crack on its screen, he spoke to the retreating figure of the troubled Captain in a calm voice. "What do you intend to do once the mercenaries have been found?"

That single question stopped the Captain in her tracks, causing the corridor to fall in to silence, with her just standing there facing away from the Jedi master. But the silence was broken when she turned around and looked at him with a look of indifference. "Excuse me?" She asked in an almost emotionless voice.

"I asked what do you intend to do once the mercenaries have been found?" He repeated in the same voice as before.

"Does it matter?" The captain replied in an icy tone.

"It does depending on your answer, because if you simply want them to face justice for the crimes they have committed in front of the senate, then I see no reason to discuss this further. But if you want to take their lives in exchange for those you have lost, then I will have to stop you from walking a path of vengeance. Trust me when I say this, if you do follow act on this thirst for vengeance then you will..."

"YOU HAVE NO RIGHT!" Fiona shouted out to Qui-Gon, violently cutting into his little speech. "Who gave Jedi the right to tell people how they should and shouldn't feel?! What gives you the right to tell me how I should deal with losing my family when you have never had one in your sad life because it's so unimportant?! I may haven't been related to them by blood but they were my FAMILY!" It was at this point that Qui-Gon had started to see the unshed tears in her eyes and feel the gapping hole that he could feel in her heart through the Force. "No Jedi has ever had a family so don't you dare talk like you know what's it like."

With her anger still present even after her rant, she was about to turn around and leave the Jedi master alone so that she could focus solely on making the bastards who took her family away from her pay. But then the same Jedi master that had caused her to start her anger outburst spoke 2 words that made her stop.

"Two actually."

She looked at Qui-Gon and he saw her with an obviously confused look on her fair features, her dark eyes still having her earlier anger but was hiding behind her curiosity at his response so he elaborated. "There are probably more Jedi that have had a family in the past that I am unaware of, but there have been plenty of them with some family or another. But believe it or not it was the fact that a young Jedi Knight lost his lover and turned to the dark side that caused the rule against having family connections to begin with. Though I do know of two situations where Jedi have lost a loved one in some way or another, in fact you have met them before we even started this mission."

"The first being Anakin. Now I'm sure that you have heard of how a child passed the excepted age of A youngling being allowed to become a Jedi a couple years ago yes?" After a brief moment of thought, the captain nodded as a look realisation grow on her face. "And as you have quite rightly assumed, Anakin was that child. Now tell me, did you ever hear of where he was found or the situation that he was in before hand?"

Fiona paused for a moment before answering. "... no, I... I only hear that he was found on some dust ball of a planet."

Qui-Gon nodded in response. "That much is true at least, but that planet was Tatooine and as you know living on that world with Jabba the hut as a war lord is never the best of places for any decent beings. But Anakin along with his mother didn't have much choice since they were both slaves to some small junk shop in the main city. They did not comfortably but they were surviving at least. But when I found him in that little shop and saw how powerful his connection to the Force was, I know I had to bring him to the council to be trained."

"Unfortunately I was unable to do anything for the boys mother so as far as I know she is still there as a slave. Anakin doesn't show it but he does miss he, he still wakes up in the mornings and realise that she is no where in sight, he still worries about but with the Jedi's laws against forming any sort of family connections he is forced to do nothing. I do the best that I can to help him, I am even trying to change those laws but as of yet I haven't even made a dent in those rules and he still yearns for a mother."

Qui-Gon paused for a moment to let the information sink in, but the silence didn't last long before the captain asked a question in that soft and light voice of hers. "... Who is the second?"

Normaly when a conversation turned towards this subject, a subject that has been and always will be something incredibly close to his heart, he would skim over the story as quickly as he could before moving on with the conversation. Something he did to try and avoid reliving those both the sweet memories about the woman that he had loved, and the dark days afterwards that had caused him to almost fall to his own dark side. But the woman before him needed help with her own loss and if retailing his own pain would somehow elevate hers, then he would gladly help in whatever capacity that he could.

Qui-Gon took a breathe before answering. "That second person would be me. Back in my youth as a youngling in the Jedi temple, I met a young girl with the other younglings and somehow, after we had talked to each other, something just fell into place and we became all but inseparable, even when we had our own masters we would spend our time together however and whenever we could. It was somewhere along those lines that I had fallen in love with her, in every way possible. But it was only later on in my years when I had made the rank of knight that while on a mission with her, I discovered through the Force that she felt the same for me."

He breathed out a sigh of regret that matched perfectly with the longing look in his eyes. "And to this day I still wish that I had told her, then maybe I could've had years worth of memories that could have helped me through my grief but because of the Jedi's law on forming emotional connections..., no, because of _my_ choice, i kept my feelings to myself. It was only years later when I became a master and had Obi-Wan as my padawan, that I finally decided to tell her how I felt when she was about to leave for a mission and by some miracle we decided that we will follow our feelings then the Jedi's law. We promised each other that after she had returned from her mission that we would do everything in our powers to make up for all the lost time that we could of had."

It was at this point that Qui-Gon's feature turned to one of pain, the same sort of pain that Fiona had felt only hours ago she realised as she continued to listen to his tale. "It wasn't long after that that I felt something was wrong, so I immediately left to find her. When I did, she had already been betrayed and had been injected with a drug that was slowly killing her. I brought her back to the Jedi temple as fast as I could so that our healers could help her, but the only thing that could be done for her was for me to remain by her side until she died."

"Afterwards I was all but consumed with my grief and pain, constantly thinking that if I had only reacted faster or had joined her on her mission then maybe we could have spend many more years together being more then just friends. But as always that pain had turned to nothing but anger and rage towards the monster that had taken her from this world, something that you have no doubt felt. So in my rage I tore though system after system looking for him, it was only by pure luck that no one was killed in my crusade, something that I had unfortunately dragged my old padawan Obi-Wan in to."

"It took months until we had found him, trapping him a couple miles away from a nearby city on some dust ball of a planet. I had him defenceless before me, my lightsaber ignited and ready to plunge in to whatever excuse he had for a heart, until he told us that he had planted several bombs around the city and the only thing that was stopping them from going off was a deadman switch he had linked to his heart. If he died, he would have taken thousands of innocent lives with him in his spite."

Remorse starting to fill his voice, something that the captain besides him noticed immediately, already able to guess what had happen next in the story. "I would like to be able to say that I was stopped by that statement, trying to find a way to stop that from happening and capturing him while doing so, but to my shame, I didn't even consider it. All that mattered to me in that moment was his death at my hand, buying no mind to the costs that would have come with it. He must have seen it in my eyes because in mere moments true terror had consumed him, he looked so pathetic as he shakes in fear, my blade ready to end his life."

"I never could firgure out if what happened next was truly her contacting him through the Force or if it was merely a last attempt that my mind conjured to bring me back to sanity, but as I was ready to end his life, I heard her voice simply saying 'Qui-Gon stop', it wasn't much, but it worked. I had finally regained my senses to realise what I had been prepared to do and stopped, disabled the dead mans switch and the bombs and brought him in front of the of the senate for trial."

Finally, after what seemed like hours of listening, being captivated by his story, he finally turned towards Fiona and she saw a range of emotions in his blue eyes, ranging from his loss to his regret, but there was also a firm look of understanding in his incredible eyes. "Please understand when I say that I know what you are feeling. I know that it feels like a part of you has been torn out of your heart and that it may never be whole again, but if you let that control you, you will become someone that you and they would never be able to recognise. I am not telling you to not kill them, as there will always be a time when killing them will become the only option that you have left, but it is how you choose to do so that is important. You can choose to kill them instantly with nothing but anger and hate, let your dark side control you and lose everything that you held dear, or you can do so when it is the only option left and staying true to yourself. That is the difference between what is wrong and what is right, that is the difference between revenge and justice."

The silence that followed was almost palpable, but that never registered within Fiona's mind as she was mostly focusing on the Jedi masters tale and about her recently lost crew. She remembered the first day when she was assigned her crew after she had become a Captain for the Republic, she remembered how at first the were all but strangers who at times couldn't stand the other. But as time went on, they had started to get used to each other, slowly changing from co-workers to friends and then finally friends to a small family that looked out for each other, something that had helped her to forget about her past troubles that had been in her life.

But this happiness and joy in her life had been ripped from her, all because some low life mercenaries just wanted some credits for killing someone and didn't care who got in their way. That cold hearted nature of the worst scum of the galaxy was something that she hated with a passion, the fact that they had taken her family away from her had only added fuel to that hatred. This added with the gaping hole in her heart called out to her to take vengeance against those who had hurt her, who had taken her family away from her with no remorse or mercy, making sure that each one felt the pain that her crew would have felt, and then some.

Yet here was a man that had felt the same pain that she had, had the same burning desire and passion to find the monster that had taken away the person that he loved, practically tearing the galaxy apart to find this man from the sounds of it. A man who didn't even care that if he did kill this monster that he would have taken thousands of innocent lives with the mans death, something that was only stopped by either pure luck or intervention from beyond the grave. But the thing that truly captured her attention and scared her, was the fact that in that moment he didn't care about the thousands of lives that he would have sacrificed to get his revenge.

 _Could..., could I end up doing that?_ She thought to herself with some fear. She tried to imagine herself in that sort of situation herself, where she was given the opportunity to take her vengeance against those mercenaries but at the cost of thousands of lives. She told herself that of course she wouldn't, she wasn't a monster like those men..., but then neither was the Jedi master that was before from what she heard, so that question was still nagging at her conscience, causing a mass of conflicting thoughts on what she would do. Some of those thoughts she realised weren't exactly good thought regarding on what she should do to those monsters.

"You don't have to think about it right now." Qui-Gon's voice spoke, cutting through the captains thoughts and bringing her back to the here and now. Seeing the confused look on her face, he continued. "I admit that this is something that you need to decide on, but it is something that must be thought about clearly first. If you just rush into this without any consideration, well you have heard of what I almost did. So take some time to think about this, after all it is your decision to make and you will have to live with the consequences of whatever you choose. I only ask that you try not to become what I almost became, something that I regret ever ending up in that situation in the first place."

She was silent for a moment before she replied in a somewhat quiet voice. "... I'm sorry. I shouldn't of snap at you like that."

Qui-Gon simply waved the apology away. "You have every right to be angry Captain, just as anyone else in your position would be so there is nothing to apologise for. The only that you shouldn't do is let that angry be your only focus and let it control you, that path is a steep and slippery one to follow and next to impossible to leave."

Fiona gave a weak smile in reply. "... Thank you. For telling me I mean, it must have been painfull to even mention it."

"Unfortunately it does, but I found that it gets easier the more you tell it to someone who just listens. Something that I wish to extend to you if you ever need someone to talk to Captain." He replied kindly.

Immediately after that sentence was uttered, the slightly cracked communicator came to life with a blaring voice. "All teams this is team 7 in the lower storage deck, we think we may have found how our pest problem had gotten on the ship."

"Copy team 7, head leader to all teams and Jedi converge on team 7's position for investigation."

Qui-Gon brought the comm device to his lips before speaking into it. "Copy head leader, team 1 is one its way." After responding to the command he placed the comm in the pocket of his robes before turning towards his companion. "I believe that we have some matters to attend to Captain."

She spent one or two moments looking towards the Jedi master before replying with a slight smile. "Fiona. I like my friends to call me Fiona Master Jinn."

It took him a moment to realise the offered friendship from the blonde Captain before him before he smiled warmly. "Then I must insist that you call me Qui-Gon rather than my rank Fiona."


End file.
